Console Exclusives: Significance and Impact *spinoff*

[iroboto]

Seeing as how I have thousands of hours into Destiny, I feel that this was at least partially aimed at me.

Yes a large majority of my game time was spent on Destiny. But I'm far from your typical gamer. At the same time, I have followed the gaming industry fairly closely in the past decade so I like to think that I know the market well enough to give an informed opinion.

Shifty pretty much explained things so I don't need to add much else. But I would also like to point out that, you say the most hours played on games were in Destiny and GTAV (and I'd also throw CoD into the mix)... Sony just happens to have marketing rights for all 3 of those games (GTAV not so much, but it was revealed at Sony's conference IIRC). Don't underestimate the importance of marketing rights for large third-party games. It's not a huge hardware selling point, but it does help nonetheless.

Lol it's directed at all of us lol I shotgun blasted that comment as I knew a few folks would have to admit to it haha, it's a matter of percentage chance lol. Destiny is the first glimpse into MMO for a lot of console players, so there's gotta be some addicted folks out there clocking huge hours.

But yes, everything Shifty and you wrote is a correct line of thinking, more options will always be better than less options, with the caveat that those options actually have to be good and interesting to the purchaser. I only made that point to just remind people that while everyone has been hating on the lack of exclusives on xbox, everyone is playing the hell out of Halo 2.0. So this idea that xbox exclusives are worn out, or boring or something, is... well a touch hypocritical when that's a majority of what PS4 population is actually playing in droves.

@Shifty Geezer Destiny plays the same on XBO and PS4 btw Ehhh, yea. the out rage on that one.

 

[iroboto]

But this shows 2 things
1) That exclusives are important for XBOX

2) That these titles no longer set the world on fire as they used to.

Also MS doesnt provide any numbers at all or any comparison with previous generations.

I know vgchartz isnt the most accurate source but it gives an indication where things are going.
Gears 4 has sold less(around half the sales) than any other Gears except Judgement
Halo 5 sold even less than the original Halo on XBOX. It is significantly the lowest selling sequel.
Forza Motorsport 6 sold less than the other Forza Motorsport games in the series.

In all these games going from sequel to sequel on One we see a significant downward trend.

Halo and Gears were two of the most anticipated franchises on the XBOX and were selling systems. People are losing interest and they arent getting new IPs of similar caliber/impact to cover the decreasing interest.

1) It shows that they are still alive and having a strong population base - therefore not worn out, and they can be considered successful.
I didn't say that exclusives weren't important to xbox, I just said that you guys keep saying Xbox Exclusives are boring, tired, and worn out. Thus, you guys kept saying 'no games on xbox', all
the best exclusives on PS4!
This whole spawn of a thread, is a direct result of, 'No, don't need 1X because it has no games'. And it goes from there in a variety of ways. I only have to prove to you, that people like the exclusives that MS has made, you may not, but people certainly do, and the on-going player base for these games are my proof.

I think you need to double check your numbers on Halo. Just because it didn't launch a beast, doesn't mean it's dying.
http://ie.ign.com/articles/2016/07/...highest-number-of-active-players-since-halo-3
That was last year.

Is there a 1st party MP game on Sony that currently has the population of Minecraft? Halo 5? Forza Horizon 3? Gears of War 4?

2) Games if supported are now marathons and not a sprint. People are too focused on that first month of sales, makes for great news, but few people are talking about how Rainbow Six Siege launched to barely any player base, to being one of the most played games today.

Let's see how Forza 7 fares this time around, according to your theory it will do even worse than 6 and absolutely no one will buy it.

 

[MrFox]

Last I logged in Everquest II, the game counter was over 80 days. That's like 2000 hours.

I have no regrets for the loss of time and enjoyed the social aspect of it (and the music by Laura Karpman was epic), but TLOU and Last Guardian both provided me with more emotional resonance in 12h each than thousands of hours from any MMOs or open world games. Quality narrative structure have a cost, it's a short one time thing and it stays with you your whole life.

Anyone who played TLOU, if I just write...

*fade out*
"WINTER"

This is enough to produce a shiver down the spine. That's a jolt of dopamine merely from your memory of that experience years ago, and few other games acheived this feat. No matter how many hours you put into it.

(I believe Last Guardian is more oxitocin than dopamine but I'm not a fucking brain surgeon or anything)

 

[BRiT]

TLOU and Last Guardian both provided me with more emotional resonance in 12h each than thousands of hours from any MMOs or open world games. Quality narrative structure have a cost, it's a short one time thing and it stays with you your whole life.

Anyone who played TLOU, if I just write...

*fade out*
"WINTER"

This is enough to produce a shiver down the spine. That's a jolt of dopamine merely from your memory of that experience years ago, and few other games acheived this feat. No matter how many hours you put into it.

Do you really need to play the game to get the same experience? Can you just watch the YouTube version of it for the same affect?

 

[MrFox]

Do you really need to play the game to get the same experience? Can you just watch the YouTube version of it for the same affect?

No, it guarantees you will have a detached experience, with all your years of building emotional protection mechanisms because you're so sensitive, and then it's over for you, the game was spoiled because most of the game's emotional connection is from your struggle to make decision affecting characters beyond the fourth wall, which is triggering the empathy part of your brain. It's the interactive part that connects you. Inevitability doesn't change your stuggle, unless the game was spoiled.

Same reason you can't get a serotonin fix for a gambling addiction (or MMOs which is similar) by watching people play poker or play MMOs, it makes you want it, but you get nothing.

But don't quote me on this I'm not a rocket surgeon scientist. I only know how to roll a joint.

 

[iroboto]

Last I logged in Everquest II, the game counter was over 80 days. That's like 2000 hours.

I have no regrets for the loss of time and enjoyed the social aspect of it (and the music by Laura Karpman was epic), but TLOU and Last Guardian both provided me with more emotional resonance in 12h each than thousands of hours from any MMOs or open world games. Quality narrative structure have a cost, it's a short one time thing and it stays with you your whole life.

Anyone who played TLOU, if I just write...

*fade out*
"WINTER"

This is enough to produce a shiver down the spine. That's a jolt of dopamine merely from your memory of that experience years ago, and few other games acheived this feat. No matter how many hours you put into it.

(I believe Last Guardian is more oxitocin than dopamine but I'm not a fucking brain surgeon or anything)

It depends on what you did in those games that would determine your emotional resonance. Did you pay casually, or did you compete to be among the top, doing end game content, the hardest content available, competing against the best players etc. I'm not downplaying narrative games or anything, ti's not that. Those stories have impact.

But when you accomplish something really hard in a competitive space that few people in the world can do, you actually feel 'accomplishment'. You actually feel like you've mastered something. And your understanding of the game, the balancing and everything that comes with it, is at such a level, that you're fundamentally playing a completely different game than everyone else. And once you get that skilled, those games provide an insane amount of dopamine rush, they provide a level of competition developers didn't expect players can reach. Barriers are broken and new heights are being reached all the time - that's an amazing place to be.

Anyone can finish playing TLOU. But not everyone can make it to Onyx in Halo 5, or master's league in Starcraft. There's a huge difference in emotional responses here. One is completing a story that has impact on your thoughts and your values. One is seriously accomplishing something with your life that very few people can accomplish.

 

[MrFox]

Sure, I have a few platinums that are around 0.7% or 0.8% like Knack or Gran Turismo, and I agree they give me a cheap thrill of serotonin, but none of them changed how I think or perceive narrative structure. Not like TLOU, TLG, or Journey which are, as I said, more dopamine and oxitocin.

It's like in high school where there was a fight between the coke/heroin fiends and the mushroom/acid/pot hippies... Some of us just want to experience all of those things. I mean the games. It was a metaphor I swear.

 

[iroboto]

Sure, I have a few platinums that are around 0.7% or 0.8% like Knack or Gran Turismo, and I agree they give me a cheap thrill of serotonin, but none of them changed how I think or perceive narrative structure. Not like TLOU, TLG, or Journey which are, as I said, more dopamine and oxitocin.

It's like in high school where there was a fight between the coke/heroin fiends and the mushroom/acid/pot hippies... Some of us just want to experience all of those things. I mean the games. It was a metaphor I swear.

Trophies don't count

 

[MrFox]

Manufactured accomplishments are like gambling... It's still only serotonin.

 

[Nesh]

1) It shows that they are still alive and having a strong population base - therefore not worn out, and they can be considered successful.
I didn't say that exclusives weren't important to xbox, I just said that you guys keep saying Xbox Exclusives are boring, tired, and worn out. Thus, you guys kept saying 'no games on xbox', all
the best exclusives on PS4!
This whole spawn of a thread, is a direct result of, 'No, don't need 1X because it has no games'. And it goes from there in a variety of ways. I only have to prove to you, that people like the exclusives that MS has made, you may not, but people certainly do, and the on-going player base for these games are my proof.

The argument was never that nobody wants an X1. The argument was why a lot of people are not motivated to buy an XBOX. You merely showed that people who purchased the exclusive games back then still play them.

I think you need to double check your numbers on Halo. Just because it didn't launch a beast, doesn't mean it's dying.
http://ie.ign.com/articles/2016/07/...highest-number-of-active-players-since-halo-3
That was last year

Is there a 1st party MP game on Sony that currently has the population of Minecraft? Halo 5? Forza Horizon 3? Gears of War 4?
.

I am talking about adoption. I dont have access to numbers but successful multiplayer is a different subject and apparently Sony doesnt need to. (i.e Zelda breath of the Wild is a system seller, a more popular title that has done better than any of these games. It has no multiplayer. So did Uncharted 4 that passed the 9 million mark)

2) Games if supported are now marathons and not a sprint. People are too focused on that first month of sales, makes for great news, but few people are talking about how Rainbow Six Siege launched to barely any player base, to being one of the most played games today.

I dont know much about the game you mention, but based on what you say I assume this game grew to prove otherwise with a higher adoption later on (If by most played btw you are talking about average time spent by active players it doesnt say anything about adoption/popularity). The XB1 titles we mentioned are not the case so far. All we can do is hope on a theoretical scenario that they might one day do what RSS did. But as it stands they are not such examples yet and they have been released for quite some time.

Let's see how Forza 7 fares this time around, according to your theory it will do even worse than 6 and absolutely no one will buy it.

It is not a theory it is a fact since numbers speak. These games were setting the world on fire in the past and MS failed to do so this gen. But the X may wake some interest back. Perhaps F7 will be good enough by itself to excite people and actually start buying consoles and more people might try it out, unlike its previous installments on One. We will see

 

[BRiT]

@Nesh Can you show the same is not true for Sony as well? Its possible that all sequel titles have sold less than the versions before them, regardless of the platform.

 

[function]

The best game on X1X will be commenting on PS4Pro textures on the internet.

"Cortana, search for Digital Foundry threads on the interweb."

 

[iroboto]

I am talking about adoption. I dont have access to numbers but successful multiplayer is a different subject and apparently Sony doesnt need to. (i.e Zelda breath of the Wild is a system seller, a more popular title that has done better than any of these games. It has no multiplayer. So did Uncharted 4 that passed the 9 million mark)

Success for MP focused games are different from single player games. It's why MP games can be free to play and generate hundreds of millions of dollars each year and single player games can not be free. That's why population base matters.

I dont know much about the game you mention, but based on what you say I assume this game grew to prove otherwise with a higher adoption later on (If by most played btw you are talking about average time spent by active players it doesnt say anything about adoption/popularity). The XB1 titles we mentioned are not the case so far. All we can do is hope on a theoretical scenario that they might one day do what RSS did. But as it stands they are not such examples yet and they have been released for quite some time.

It's a good read:
https://www.pcgamesn.com/rainbow-si...peration-health-alexandre-remy-xavier-marquis

Halo 5 is hugely popular and generates pretty significant revuenues through its DLC system. its unlikely that halo would be able to replicate the success it once did as back then the market had virtually no console shooters to compete with. And now the market is full of innovative shooters.
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/halo-5-microtransactions-have-now-generated-at-lea/1100-6434976/

 

[zed]

Xbox One X. From wence this thread was derailed.

No iroboto was specifically saying the Xbox one S plays games better than a ps4 pro, reread his statement. Which of course is a ludicrous statement

 

[Shifty Geezer]

No iroboto was specifically saying the Xbox one S plays games better than a ps4 pro, reread his statement. Which of course is a ludicrous statement

He didn't say it plays games better than anything. He said it was the 'best play', which I asked to be clarified and which was clarified here, which was posted before your reply had you read a little further.

 

[BRiT]

No iroboto was specifically saying the Xbox one S plays games better than a ps4 pro, reread his statement. Which of course is a ludicrous statement

And please read my entire post. Here it is below to give context that doesn't make it seem that far fetched.

But I can see how people's opinions about the platform could be better for them even on the Xbox One S. MS allows for crossplay and play anywhere (buy game and play on console or PC) and also BC for the previous generation (X360) and the generation prior to that too (Xbox Original).

 

[iroboto]

No iroboto was specifically saying the Xbox one S plays games better than a ps4 pro, reread his statement. Which of course is a ludicrous statement

The above posts from Shifty and Brit cover it. But most of that language comes from getting older. I seldom have time to deal with down time, or maintenance. the trade off of money for convenience is more common now than before. Especially with a family of 3 kids, I need to move fast. Less time to dawdle.

I don't want to rebuild my database. I don't want to deal with saved game issues on the cloud. If my Xbox tv is in use, I want to be able to play on my PC without a streaming solution. If I need to cater to more individuals in a house, or deciding to have a gaming party, subscriptions like game pass and EA access are the cheapest and most effective way to give everyone what they want.

I don't want to ask why my PS4 Pro is getting DSR on some titles and not on others. I would like for it to be very clear what benefits 4Pro brings to each title.

I'd like UHD playback for a small subset of movies that I care about. Like planet earth.

I like BC because I didn't get into console gaming until this generation.

I assume with high probability that the next Xbox will also support BC carrying my library forward on both PC and XBO. If it doesn't support BC, my XBO library that I have digitally can carry forward on PC. If my console breaks or I decide to sell my Xbox, or I decide that my console adventure ends with this generation and I'm going to go back to PC; my library isn't fully lost and I can still play on my PC (the XPA titles) and still play with my friends (the cross play titles).

To me: this is platform. Platform is flexibility, I don't feel locked in with Xbox. One day the price of XBLG may be too high or I find I don't play enough to get value from it. I still have PC to carry on with. It may even get better as apps are introduced into the ecosystem.

Performance is clearly in Sony's court until Scorpio arrives.

But I never wrote Xbox One S is higher performance than a PS4/Pro. XBOX can be my VCR XBO, a Scorpio, or my 1070 core i5 PC; the choice is mine as that is where XBOX lives.

If I want performance I have it.

 

[Recop]

IMO it's very naive to consider the impact of exclusive titles only by their sales... with more exclusives you have a much stronger and positive presence in the media.

Marketing is more subtle than people may think. How many people really buy the top end graphic cards ? Yet, it's still very important for the manufacturer to claim "most powerful GPU ever".

Spiderman PS4 has more than 40 millions of views on Youtube... it's already a victory for Sony...

Also, since Sony completely dominates the market, MS has to offer more than the power argument. Especially when your last product comes 1 year later and cost +100$.

The hardware difference is a key factor when both consoles launch at the same time with a new generation. It was a key element between the PS4/One. We're not anymore in the same situation...

 

[iroboto]

IMO it's very naive to consider the impact of exclusive titles only by their sales... with more exclusives you have a much stronger and positive presence in the media.

Marketing is more subtle than people may think. How many people really buy the top end graphic cards ? Yet, it's still very important for the manufacturer to claim "most powerful GPU ever".

Spiderman PS4 has more than 40 millions of views on Youtube... it's already a victory for Sony...

Also, since Sony completely dominates the market, MS has to offer more than the power argument. Especially when your last product comes 1 year later and cost +100$.

The hardware difference is a key factor when both consoles launch at the same time with a new generation. It was a key element between the PS4/One. We're not anymore in the same situation...

I don't disagree with your points. But marketing presence, titles and claims, are all just...well marketing.
marketing doesn't affect your enjoyment of the games. It shouldn't affect the enjoyment of the product unless somehow you associate your class with the product, in which consoles don't apply to the luxury market.

If this is a marketing thread or a strategy thread, I would have a different position. What Sony does as a strategy, is absolutely correct. If I were Sony this is how I would play it, its all about the exclusives as a talking point, and you want everyone drumming that up because XBOX doesn't have as many or of the type people are wanting to experience. Sony knows DF won't be doing them any favours on the 3rd party scene for the next couple of years until next gen, so this is their end game strategy for PS4 forward.

But that's a far difference from us, as consumers, what we actually experience, and how much we actually experience. Each person will clearly have their own tastes, like MrFox loves his narrative titles, and I'm an eSport junkie. But that was what the thread was about, why are 'you' or aren't 'you' getting 1X, and it really could be as simple as, I really just like TLOU and unfortunately it's not on XBOX.

Instead it's a list war of games, most people listing them, are unlikely to play. And then they say, I won't buy XBOX because it has no games. Well it only really doesn't have handful games you want to play; the rest of it is walking the companies toe line. I know few people in this world that will only buy exclusives only and completely skip 3rd party titles.

 

[Recop]

I agree with you. My message was about the overall strategy of Sony toward the public. But i can 100% understand that, ultimately, your choice is based on your own tastes.

And indeed, if you're not interested by Sony games (or performances are very important to you) and you have the money, then Clearly the Xbox X is the best choice.