I'm not discussing the better strategy, nor am I discussing what is better. I definitely want to get away from heading down that path.
Just interested in talking about the impact. What's better is something each person will need to decide for them self.
Did anyone say 1st party games are better than 3rd party? I haven't noticed that argument anywhere.
No. I think the key messaging from me here is to not be dismissive of impact 3P titles. Think of a low probability situation where 3P titles are by far and large the most critically acclaimed titles year after year. It's part of the equation then right? Measuring the difference in titles you never intend to play is pointless. The focal point will then adjust to which console will provide those 3P experiences better right?
This should mirror year 1/2 of this generation in which Xbox had a great deal of a number of AAA exclusives in their launch window (Titanfall/Forza/Ryse... etc) and still largely failed to beat out PS4.
Your argument that there are lots of high quality games from 3rd party so you aren't reliant on high quality games from 1st party is a counter-argument to an argument no-one else raised AFAICS. The issue is one of library, and, unless the libraries are saturated and there's nothing new that exclusives can bring, the machine with more high quality games has the advantage.
Never said that. I think you're asking me from an argumentative perspective if I understand the maximization scenario, chop off what is common and just look at where the libraries are different. Of course I do, this is standard set theory.
but we both know purchasing is driven by value, thus i think we're doing the right way but comparing the wrong things.
Your current argument:
Let A set of all titles on Xbox = { a, b, c, d, e, f, g....}
Let B be the set of all titles on PS4 = {{ a, b, c, d, e, f, g....,e1, e2, e3, e4}
Let C be A intersect B which is the set of all common multi platforms games.
If you just do A-C and compare it against B-C, B wins.
Actual reality use standard distribution put a score out of 10 for instance. Critically acclaimed games are sitting at the 2-3 sigma level.
Let A be perceived value of all titles on Xbox One = {a-8,b-6,c-3,d-5,e-6....}
Let B be perceived value of all titles on PS4 = {a-9,b-7,c-4,d-6,e-7....}
Let C be A intersect B which is the set of all common multi platforms games with the same value score.
So if you now take the Sum of values of A-C and you compare it to the sum of values of B-C, you're going to get wildly different scores.
This is because of 3 reasons:
a) Each person will need to judge the value of the title to them on each platform, it's not for us to decide what that value is, but I suspect things like,
interest in the title,
experience(graphics & sound, controller) and whether your
friends are there to improve the experience,
price, and timed exclusivity (novelty of being first to play it), carry over, age of the title (interested when it was new, but no longer interested now it's old) etc, are all factors that would adjust the value scoring between the same title but on competing platforms.
b) any exclusives you want to play creates a scenario of uncontested points
c) any titles you have no interest in playing have a value of 0
d) the difference in value scores between multiplatform games shouldn't be that large, but perhaps this is where I'm wrong.
I think we would expect that for most people they would choose where they perceive the sum of higher value. I setup the scores above to reflect XBO vs PS4 at launch as an example (giving the same MP title 1 pt higher for instance across the board). But the value scores could be wildly different when you bring in the mid gen refreshes and compare them to the base models, things like BC alter the set entirely as for some folks some BC titles are entirely free.
Mathematically, here's where I'm going to land.
Exclusives have uncontested value, meaning, a single score of 10 is uncontested and would take a lift from the rest of the set to make up for it. So I think that's a big impact, especially if you're hammering down exclusives in the 3+ sigma range, where you may expect to see 1 out of 100 titles land there, having a lot of them there is a big deal. And that provides a model of reality, that many of you speak to. But this model should be able to explain why someone may still feel differently.
