Console Exclusives: Significance and Impact *spinoff*
- Thread starter Globalisateur
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not only that but this doesn't account for any internal studios they created in the last few years and have ramped up.You think they did all of that JUST on Sunday?
Those were from a previous management that had first party. They then dropped first party and stopped making lots of games. They've now started up again.
I didn't say they were. However, they were only recycling IPs the past few years whereas the other both recycle known, trusted IPs, and created new ones.
Except the list wars show there weren't exclusives. MS has had a tiny fraction versus Sony the past couple of years, while closing studios. You can't ignore the facts! MS did do exclusives the same as everyone else, then changed policy to not do many at all, and now have picked up the same gameplan as the rest again and are creating/securing exclusives.
Games are made in 3 to 5 or 6 years now. The result will be long to see and Sony extends too with a new studio in Sony San Diego and two other studios one call Sony Nort West from what I read from an insider on resetera and the other no name. All in the last 18 months. And they close studios bleeding money like Evolutions studios and Guerrilla Cambridge. Loss are public information and using the same website you can find Media Molecule is profitable.
Right I must be forgetting the halos , gears and forzas they made. None of those happened right ? They even had things like below , crackdown 3 , scale bound , fable , cup head and other games that either fell apart or took longer to get out of the gate. But no we have to perform mental gymnastics to make it sound like MS shut down their spending in exclusive content.
It certainly didn't take them three years to draft letters of intent for Ninja Theory and Compulsion. On Giant Bomb just now Phil implied he wasn't really empowered to make these kinds of changes until the reorganization last year, despite the promises he'd been making for some time.
there are some projects coming up over the next year or so that will get announced that is what he was working on before the reorg.
MS never dismissed exclusivity. Their strategy was to minimize the cost of exclusivity by emphasizing the use of second and exclusive third party development. That strategy manifested during the 360 but was initiated before that generation.
ME1, Gears, GTA LCS, Ryse, Sunset, SOD, Crackdown, QB, dead rising, recore and Titanfall are all examples of that strategy.
The problem with that strategy is that unlike last gen, the XB1 didn’t really enjoy strong games like Gears, CD, SOD and ME which were popular enough to warrant sequels. If Ryse, QB and Recore had reviewed and sold well, we would all be talking about ReRyse, Quantum Broken and TriceCore instead of MS’s lack of compelling first party titles.
Ultimately, the problem with MS hasnt been first party vs second/third party strategy. MS’s problem this gen has been choosing the right projects to fund.
It doesn’t matter if you have a 100 first party devs, if you or your team doesn’t have an eye for picking the right projects that will turn into must have games then you end up in the same reality the Xbox one is dealing with today.
ME1, Gears, GTA LCS, Ryse, Sunset, SOD, Crackdown, QB, dead rising, recore and Titanfall are all examples of that strategy.
The problem with that strategy is that unlike last gen, the XB1 didn’t really enjoy strong games like Gears, CD, SOD and ME which were popular enough to warrant sequels. If Ryse, QB and Recore had reviewed and sold well, we would all be talking about ReRyse, Quantum Broken and TriceCore instead of MS’s lack of compelling first party titles.
Ultimately, the problem with MS hasnt been first party vs second/third party strategy. MS’s problem this gen has been choosing the right projects to fund.
It doesn’t matter if you have a 100 first party devs, if you or your team doesn’t have an eye for picking the right projects that will turn into must have games then you end up in the same reality the Xbox one is dealing with today.
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steveOrino
Regular
For MS, its just bad studio management near the end of the 360s lifespan to the beginning of the X1. MS clearly had different ideas for xbox during that time hence the rebranding at the X1 reveal. It just takes time and the right people to get quality titles from concept to release. I doubt we will be seeing TV/sports and water coolers at their next system reveal.
For Sony, they have a lot of confidence in their first parties right now, so much so they pretty much dedicated the entire E3 to them exclusively.
For Sony, they have a lot of confidence in their first parties right now, so much so they pretty much dedicated the entire E3 to them exclusively.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Arguably it started closer to the start of the X360 generation as they started to move away from their first party studios, many of which were PC due to wanting to focus on console development. That accelerated as the generation went on.
FASA Studio, Ensemble Studio, Aces Studio, Microsoft Game Studios Japan (Phantom Dust), etc. were all closed down or sold off either before X360 or by the midway point of the X360.
Throughout the X360 lifetime they invested in and increased investment in 2nd and 3rd party studios for exclusives. BioWare, Beep Industries (Voodoo Vince), Epic Games, From Software (Ninja Blade), Mistwalker (Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey), Bizarre Creations (Project Gotham Racing), and a whole host of others.
All through the X360 generation they relied mostly on 2nd and 3rd party exclusives. Their 2nd and 3rd party exclusive partners absolutely dwarfs their first party studios during the X360 generation.
Management and investors viewed that as less risky than keeping first party studios on.
When 2nd and 3rd party exclusives proved to be underwhelming at XBO launch, combined with previous Xbox management wanting to focus on F2P games, combined with XBO's botched messaging at launch that really put into stark contrast how little MS had WRT first party studios. A position they put themselves in.
We'll have to see how things go. Phil has worked to set the foundation for what he wants the Microsoft gaming platform (which includes Xbox) to be. We'll now have to wait and see how it turns out.
Damn, while double checking my facts, I looked up Crimson Skies one of my favorite games on PC. I'd forgotten that Sony had closed down Zipper Interactive back in 2012. One of my favorite developers back on PC (they also did MechWarrior 3).
Regards,
SB
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For the most part I agree. But I think one of Microsoft biggest problem was not allowing it's famed first party teams the freedom or latitude on creating new IPs, rather than just churning out sequels. And I believe that's one of the reasons why Bungie and Microsoft went their separate ways dealing with the Halo series. Hopefully, we'll see more diverse titles from the likes of 343 Industries or The Coalition.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Well, in the case of Bungie they got their creative freedom, but they also make a lot less money now. According to VGChartz, Destiny (the good one) still hasn't sold as much as Halo ODST (the worst selling Halo game). Although with DLC it might have made more money than ODST, but nowhere near any of the mainline Bungie Halo games including Reach.
That said, it really is unfortunate that Lionhead basically made MS feel they had to keep tight oversight over their studios. Hopefully things have changed back to what it was like for MS first party studios before Lionhead started to have really bad issues with delivering on games. And from the sounds of it, it has under Phil.
Regards,
SB
This doesn't sound right, especially for a multiplatform game like Destiny. I will have to check into the numbers later, outside of VGChartz.
2nd and 3rd party exclusives also get expensive over the course of the generation as you end up leaving more and more sales on the table. That's why they ended up getting largely superseded by exclusive or timed exclusive content deals. Most of the 2nd and 3rd party exclusives you see now are projects from smaller studios who would have some challenges developing and supporting multiple platforms and would strongly benefit from a platform holder helping with the marketing of their game or games from and for the Japanese market where the Xbox sales are insignificant. The latter may start showing up on Switch, though, if they haven't already.
I'm seeing mention of the same few exclusives for XB1 over and over, as evidence they exist. Yes, they do. They are the ones that MS has invested in, but they haven't taken the exclusive library aspect to the console as seriously as the others. I refer to https://gematsu.com/exclusives. I was going to do some stats (already linked), but realised the best way to demonstrate the difference in company policies is probably visually. In particular, look at the disc-based titles on the left side of each list. The green block for XB1 includes Forza, Halo and Gears franchises. This image includes all exclusive content. We may be more interested in just full exclusive or platform exclusives, but by the time I had thought about that, I had already spent a while piecing together the PS4 list so felt I'd just finish with that. Gematsu has the lists people can filter, count, create infographics for, however they please. Personally, I can't see how this is mental gymnastics...
Pretty sure we landed that the quantity of exclusives has never been the driver for these discussions.
It's largely been how many GOTY exclusives/system sellers in the library that is largely driving that discussion.
For the majority of the buyers, that list is fairly meaningless outside of the major AAA titles.
People don't want to play more games. People want to play good games.
People moan about Halo, Gears, Forza but don't moan about the same number franchises on Sony. There's a reason for it, they aren't where the audience wants those games to be. And for Sony those titles are where the audiences want them to be, so they don't actually care that its the next in the long lasting franchise.
If Halo, Gears and Forza, SoT, and SoD, Ryse, Sunset Overdrive really managed to set the world on fire, we wouldn't be having these discussions.
They're good games,not to say that they aren't. But that's not what people want when we engage in this discussion.
They want the 'best' games. There's nothing wrong for their customer base to ask for the best.
It's largely been how many GOTY exclusives/system sellers in the library that is largely driving that discussion.
For the majority of the buyers, that list is fairly meaningless outside of the major AAA titles.
People don't want to play more games. People want to play good games.
People moan about Halo, Gears, Forza but don't moan about the same number franchises on Sony. There's a reason for it, they aren't where the audience wants those games to be. And for Sony those titles are where the audiences want them to be, so they don't actually care that its the next in the long lasting franchise.
If Halo, Gears and Forza, SoT, and SoD, Ryse, Sunset Overdrive really managed to set the world on fire, we wouldn't be having these discussions.
They're good games,not to say that they aren't. But that's not what people want when we engage in this discussion.
They want the 'best' games. There's nothing wrong for their customer base to ask for the best.
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We've discussed lots and never reached consensus. 
One presents a list of numbers. Another says it's quality not quantity. The next line of discussion is that even the top sellers only sell to a small percentage of the audience (eg. well below 20%, very often below one in ten). There's no point entertaining the same discussion - it's going nowhere.
The current line comes from MS's announced acquisition of 5 studio, and is specifically observing that MS had a different strategy and have changed strategy. I think most are happy with that, but some are contesting it. Evidence - MS had significantly less studios than Sony and Nintendo. MS has significantly less exclusives than Sony and Nintendo. MS has significantly less upcoming exclusives than Sony are Nintendo. How can that not be taken as a difference in philosophy and investment??
One presents a list of numbers. Another says it's quality not quantity. The next line of discussion is that even the top sellers only sell to a small percentage of the audience (eg. well below 20%, very often below one in ten). There's no point entertaining the same discussion - it's going nowhere.The current line comes from MS's announced acquisition of 5 studio, and is specifically observing that MS had a different strategy and have changed strategy. I think most are happy with that, but some are contesting it. Evidence - MS had significantly less studios than Sony and Nintendo. MS has significantly less exclusives than Sony and Nintendo. MS has significantly less upcoming exclusives than Sony are Nintendo. How can that not be taken as a difference in philosophy and investment??