Console Exclusives: Significance and Impact *spinoff*

My question is why would anyone who only owned only a XB1 buy a XBX when they could have added another console and opened up a bunch of exclusives? More pixels? Most of us play games and if you are not DF and pixel counting for a living, then buy a Switch or PS4 and have many more games to choose from. If I was a XB1 only person I'd have PUBG and SoT to play, I'd go crazy. No option to pick up Nino Kuni 2, God of War, Detroit, Shadow of the Colossus, The Show 2018, Spider-man, and everything that came before 2018. I guess people really are loyal to brands.
 
My question is why would anyone who only owned only a XB1 buy a XBX when they could have added another console and opened up a bunch of exclusives? More pixels? Most of us play games and if you are not DF and pixel counting for a living, then buy a Switch or PS4 and have many more games to choose from. If I was a XB1 only person I'd have PUBG and SoT to play, I'd go crazy. No option to pick up Nino Kuni 2, God of War, Detroit, Shadow of the Colossus, The Show 2018, Spider-man, and everything that came before 2018. I guess people really are loyal to brands.
I think it's just an overall preference thing... people just being more familiar/comfortable with a certain system and playing where their friends play mostly. A lot of those core XB1 fans are probably making the upgrade.
 
My question is why would anyone who only owned only a XB1 buy a XBX when they could have added another console and opened up a bunch of exclusives?

Because its a monster of a console that plays all my existing X360 and Xbox One games so much better than the launch model xbox one and its the best place to play multiplatform console games.
 
My question is why would anyone who only owned only a XB1 buy a XBX when they could have added another console and opened up a bunch of exclusives? More pixels? Most of us play games and if you are not DF and pixel counting for a living, then buy a Switch or PS4 and have many more games to choose from. If I was a XB1 only person I'd have PUBG and SoT to play, I'd go crazy. No option to pick up Nino Kuni 2, God of War, Detroit, Shadow of the Colossus, The Show 2018, Spider-man, and everything that came before 2018. I guess people really are loyal to brands.
Most people have a few favorite games which they want the best possible version making the upgrade worth it. Having both PS and XB means a lot of overlap, and you have to pay for both online services. Also you have to swap between controllers layouts which is annoying.

To play everything I want, including all my old games... I have a gaming PC, a fat PS3 with full BC, a PS4 Pro, and almost all Nintendo home consoles. It all takes way too much space, specially the nintendo stuff, and PSVR, and millions of controllers. And a complete sim racing rig mostly for gran turismo.

I think normal people just want a single box connected to the TV and a controller.
 
Because its a monster of a console that plays all my existing X360 and Xbox One games so much better than the launch model xbox one and its the best place to play multiplatform console games.

True, i tend to forget backward compatibility for people who like to play with old games. It's a real argument against PS4 exclusives even if i think that most gamers prefer to play with new games.
 
My question is why would anyone who only owned only a XB1 buy a XBX when they could have added another console and opened up a bunch of exclusives? More pixels? Most of us play games and if you are not DF and pixel counting for a living, then buy a Switch or PS4 and have many more games to choose from. If I was a XB1 only person I'd have PUBG and SoT to play, I'd go crazy. No option to pick up Nino Kuni 2, God of War, Detroit, Shadow of the Colossus, The Show 2018, Spider-man, and everything that came before 2018. I guess people really are loyal to brands.
3rd party games are a bigger factor than exclusives. They are just as good. They have tons of variety and come out much more often. You think PS4 could stomp Xbox without the third party heavy hitters? Ie: GTA, RDR, COD, BF, Ubisoft games and others?

1st party titles round out the library. But if you don’t have a 3rd party library to round out, you’ve become Nintendo.
 
3rd party games are a bigger factor than exclusives. They are just as good. They have tons of variety and come out much more often. You think PS4 could stomp Xbox without the third party heavy hitters? Ie: GTA, RDR, COD, BF, Ubisoft games and others?

1st party titles round out the library. But if you don’t have a 3rd party library to round out, you’ve become Nintendo.
We're not debating the quality of 3rd party vs exclusive, or whether a console could survive without 3rd party support though.

Basically he's asking XB1 -> XB1X vs XB1+PS4/Pro.
XB1X Pros:
-Better 3rd party patched/enhanced games, often 3-4x the resolution (sometimes with other improvements)
-Better 1st party patched/enhanced games, same as above
-Can sell your XB1, making the upgrade path a bit cheaper than the PS4 Pro

XB1X Cons:
-Miss out on a bunch of other exclusives

PS4 Pro Pros:
-Better 3rd party patched/enhanced games, often 2-3x the resolution (sometimes with other improvements)
-Opens you up to a bunch of new exclusives

PS4 Pro Cons:
-Slightly more expensive if you keep your XB1
-Not as big of an upgrade
-Lose out on patched/enhanced XB1 titles

The price difference between both options isn't that big, so it basically comes down to whether or not you're interested in the PS4's exclusives, and if you're willing to sacrifice some performance for them.

But I do disagree that the quality of 3rd party is the same as an exclusive, generally speaking. 1st party games are generally noticeably better in both quality/polish and graphical fidelity IMO. Games are tailor made for the system and IMO it shows.

For instance, if Spider-Man, GT Sport, God of War, Horizon ZD etc., were MP games made by, say, Ubisoft... I have a hard time believing these games would look, perform and be as polished as they are. And that's not a knock at Ubisoft; I just think it would be difficult. These are games going toe-to-toe with other games on machines with higher specs and often times coming out on top. Almost every PS3 exclusive is another prime example.
 
Last edited:
We're not debating the quality of 3rd party vs exclusive, or whether a console could survive without 3rd party support though.

Basically he's asking XB1 -> XB1X vs XB1+PS4/Pro.
XB1X Pros:
-Better 3rd party patched/enhanced games, often 3-4x the resolution (sometimes with other improvements)
-Better 1st party patched/enhanced games, same as above
-Can sell your XB1, making the upgrade path a bit cheaper than the PS4 Pro

XB1X Cons:
-Miss out on a bunch of other exclusives

PS4 Pro Pros:
-Better 3rd party patched/enhanced games, often 2-3x the resolution (sometimes with other improvements)
-Opens you up to a bunch of new exclusives

PS4 Pro Cons:
-Slightly more expensive if you keep your XB1
-Not as big of an upgrade
-Lose out on patched/enhanced XB1 titles

The price difference between both options isn't that big, so it basically comes down to whether or not you're interested in the PS4's exclusives, and if you're willing to sacrifice some performance for them.

But I do disagree that the quality of 3rd party is the same as an exclusive, generally speaking. 1st party games are generally noticeably better in both quality/polish and graphical fidelity IMO. Games are tailor made for the system and IMO it shows.

For instance, if Spider-Man, GT Sport, God of War, Horizon ZD etc., were MP games made by, say, Ubisoft... I have a hard time believing these games would look, perform and be as polished as they are. And that's not a knock at Ubisoft; I just think it would be difficult. These are games going toe-to-toe with other games on machines with higher specs and often times coming out on top. Almost every PS3 exclusive is another prime example.

There's a quality vs. quantity aspect to consider, though. Buying a different platform gives you access to more exclusives, but there aren't really aren't that many exclusives that are a cut above what is being offered by the 3rd parties. So, is it better to buy a platform that will enable a few higher-quality experiences over the course of a year or one where every experience is enhanced? Personally, I primarily game on PC despite having access to both an Xbox One S and a PS4. I find that the titles I buy for the latter two are few and far between. I'm glad I have them to play those exceptional exclusives, but I wouldn't buy either of them over a GPU upgrade that could get me a consistent 4K60 in all games for a reasonable price even if many Xbox exclusives weren't also coming to PC.
 
Personally I dont quiet see it, I've never thought PC and consoles are direct substitutes (which is why I think MS exclusives being also on Windows has almost no practical negative effect on Xbox in the console space, despite claims). I dont think this occurs a ton. If I wanted PC gaming, I'd rather even have a low end card like a 1050 Ti than a extremely powerful console!

However are there people in the world who were looking at a high end PC and decided on an Xbox One X instead? Well, I'm sure there is at least one.

It's very easy to have a console experience on the PC, if that's what you want, and a lot of people do use their gaming PCs as if they were supercharged consoles. There isn't that big of an adjustment to go from comfy-couch PC gaming to Xbox One X gaming.
 
Basically he's asking XB1 -> XB1X vs XB1+PS4/Pro.
McCorbo summed it up pretty nicely.

It ultimately depends on what you love playing. And there are some absolute diehard COD/BF/GTA/RDR/FallOut etc, 3rd party lovers that would never give 2 damns about exclusives to begin with. It's why you continue to see Xbox survive the 'lack of 1P onslaught'. Even down on power on the base system (as per your other comments, the cheaper system is bought more), and even down on exclusives, Xbox continues to stay afloat. By all means they should be dead. So really, the only thing holding them up has to be 3rd party titles, and they enjoy playing them on the xbox platform. The increase in power for X1X is very much there to ensure that they can continue to play what they love. If they feel like they aren't getting what they want from Xbox, they would have left to Playstation already, or we will see them jump ship next gen (so we'll need to wait and see).
But if the lack of exclusives is such a pain point for xbox players, we should continue to see the gap between the sales of the two products soar especially this late into the generation, but we haven't.
 
But if the lack of exclusives is such a pain point for xbox players, we should continue to see the gap between the sales of the two products soar especially this late into the generation, but we haven't.
Just a discussion point and not one I necessarily subscribe to -

It could be that the lack of exclusives won't affect future sales of the platform as late adopters aren't that interested. However, the XBox faithful who bought early and wanted exclusives only to find they didn't happen this generation may think twice about buying XBox next time around because PlayStation will offer all the third party games plus Sony's exclusives. If so, you wouldn't see any fallout until next gen; only a small minority would probably ditch XB mid generation to swap to PS4 as there's already a notable investment in XB. Of course, there are many other factors that may discourage transitioning to another platform next-gen even if the lack of exclusives versus the competition does disappoint platform fans, so you may not see any consequences anyway. I don't think it can be ruled out as a negative factor towards platform sales though and I don't think you can really look for evidence of its impact if its not cataclysmic.
 
Just a discussion point and not one I necessarily subscribe to -

It could be that the lack of exclusives won't affect future sales of the platform as late adopters aren't that interested. However, the XBox faithful who bought early and wanted exclusives only to find they didn't happen this generation may think twice about buying XBox next time around because PlayStation will offer all the third party games plus Sony's exclusives. If so, you wouldn't see any fallout until next gen; only a small minority would probably ditch XB mid generation to swap to PS4 as there's already a notable investment in XB. Of course, there are many other factors that may discourage transitioning to another platform next-gen even if the lack of exclusives versus the competition does disappoint platform fans, so you may not see any consequences anyway. I don't think it can be ruled out as a negative factor towards platform sales though and I don't think you can really look for evidence of its impact if its not cataclysmic.
Agreed, I also added that caveat to my statement as well when I writing it out. If we're going to see more transition, it would be next generation as the new generation would remove the ecosystem lock-in.

It's going to be really critical for xbox to roll into next generation on a really high note, I think that much everyone agrees with. They don't seem to have too much runway left for this generation it would appear, perhaps 2 more years.
 
There's a quality vs. quantity aspect to consider, though. Buying a different platform gives you access to more exclusives, but there aren't really aren't that many exclusives that are a cut above what is being offered by the 3rd parties. So, is it better to buy a platform that will enable a few higher-quality experiences over the course of a year or one where every experience is enhanced? Personally, I primarily game on PC despite having access to both an Xbox One S and a PS4. I find that the titles I buy for the latter two are few and far between. I'm glad I have them to play those exceptional exclusives, but I wouldn't buy either of them over a GPU upgrade that could get me a consistent 4K60 in all games for a reasonable price even if many Xbox exclusives weren't also coming to PC.
Not everyone cares about the differences between 1440p-1800p/1800C-2160C vs 1800p-2160p either though, and would rather buy a system that will allow them to play games like Uncharted, GoW, MLB The Show, TLG, Spider-Man, Horizon ZD, Death Stranding, Nioh, Persona 5, Bloodborne, R&C, TLoU2, Days Gone, Detroit etc...all games that are not available on any other platform, not even PC.

Why are you only counting exclusives that are a cut above 3rd party? Again, we're not debating the quality of exclusives vs 3rd party (at least not in the main discussion). I don't understand your quality vs quantity point; it's a fact that there are several of multi-million selling, well reviewed/received exclusives on PS4, many of which are not even available on PC. Yes I get it, not everyone is interested in PS4 exclusives, hence why I said that it depends if you're interested in them and are willing to give up some performance.
 
Last edited:
Not everyone cares about the differences between 1440p-1800p/1800C-2160C vs 1800p-2160p either though, and would rather buy a system that will allow them to play games like Uncharted, GoW, MLB The Show, TLG, Spider-Man, Horizon ZD, Nioh, Persona 5, Bloodborne, R&C, TLoU2, Days Gone, Detroit etc...all games that are not available on any other platform, not even PC.

Why are you only counting exclusives that are a cut above 3rd party? Again, we're not debating the quality of exclusives vs 3rd party (at least not in the main discussion). I don't understand your quality vs quantity point; it's a fact that there are several of multi-million selling, well reviewed/received exclusives on PS4, many of which are not even available on PC. Yes I get it, not everyone is interested in PS4 exclusives, hence why I said that it depends if you're interested in them and are willing to give up some performance.
He’s not. What he is saying is that 3P games have great competing products and effectively act as good substitutes.

So if that is the case and there are more 3P games released per year than 1P, it’s not unfathomable to go with upgrading the 3P experience.
Ecosystem lock in is always makes for a tough argument. The reverse could be said about Sony folks upgrading. They should all go to X1X to get the better 4K experience and have access to all new exclusives as well. But no one here was pushing that narrative.
 
The reverse could be said about Sony folks upgrading. They should all go to X1X to get the better 4K experience and have access to all new exclusives as well. But no one here was pushing that narrative.
The exclusives argument currently seems very one-sided, which is why it's being presented as a significant USP in the value proposition. Unlike last gen which was very much six-of-one, half-a-dozen-of-the-other, going forwards we have a clear title advantage for PS4, just as XB1X has a performance advantage.

https://gematsu.com/exclusives/

Thus the argument goes that most gamers are going to value an extended library with more variety over improved quality. Of course that's debatable and probably unprovable but it's not an unfair assessment, seems to me. We have an old, long thread on the subject of platform exclusives. I think by and large, a significant exclusive will net more sales (even if only a few tens of thousands) than a moderate quality improvement will, and so with enough exclusives you tilt the sales in your favour.

In short, Joe Gamer has a choice between XB1X offering 100% game quality in their favourite third party games, or 4Pro offering 80% game quality in their favourite third party games and dozens more unique experiences.
 
He’s not. What he is saying is that 3P games have great competing products and effectively act as good substitutes.

So if that is the case and there are more 3P games released per year than 1P, it’s not unfathomable to go with upgrading the 3P experience.
Ecosystem lock in is always makes for a tough argument.
But he is, in reference to my post:
There's a quality vs. quantity aspect to consider, though. Buying a different platform gives you access to more exclusives, but there aren't really aren't that many exclusives that are a cut above what is being offered by the 3rd parties. So, is it better to buy a platform that will enable a few higher-quality experiences over the course of a year or one where every experience is enhanced?
If this was in response to DrJay24's post, asking why anyone would buy an X over a Pro if they owned an XB1, then I understand. But this was in response to my post. I fully laid out the pros and cons of each option and I'm fully aware that if people aren't interested in PS4 titles and prioritize higher performance in 3P games over PS4 exclusives, then X is the better option... i stated that in the post he responded to.

When I listed exclusives as a pro for PS4, quality is irrelevant. We are not to judge the quality, or whether or not they're a cut above 3P. The point is, there are several exclusives on PS4, many of which are not available on PC.

And again, every PS4 Pro 3P game is also significantly enhanced over base XB1, just not to the same extent as X. Again, everything was covered in my post above.

The reverse could be said about Sony folks upgrading. They should all go to X1X to get the better 4K experience and have access to all new exclusives as well. But no one here was pushing that narrative.
No one is pushing that narrative because that was not the question.

edit: Shifty's post above mine explains things well. I'm not the greatest with words. :D
 
Last edited:
nice site btw
Holy fuck :oops:, I knew there was a lot more on sony platforms but the ratio is far more than I would of ever thought

retail games only, and full exclusive
XB1 10 games
PS4 108 games

10:1 ratio!

looking back at xb360 vs ps3 retail games only, and full exclusive

The ratio looks like 2:1 in sony's favour (not counting but just going by screenfull)
This gen MS didn't even show up to the party
 
nice site btw
Holy fuck :oops:, I knew there was a lot more on sony platforms but the ratio is far more than I would of ever thought

retail games only, and full exclusive
XB1 10 games
PS4 108 games

10:1 ratio!

looking back at xb360 vs ps3 retail games only, and full exclusive

The ratio looks like 2:1 in sony's favour (not counting but just going by screenfull)
This gen MS didn't even show up to the party
To be fair, that's because MS decided to release all of their exclusives on PC as well. But the number of console exclusives is still significantly higher on PS4.

We could argue about the 'quality' of those exclusives all day, but that would just be our opinions. The fact is, there are far more exclusives on PS4, so there are more incentives to own a PS4 as an XB1 owner vs the reverse situation. But that's a different discussion.
 
We are not to judge the quality, or whether or not they're a cut above 3P.
Furthermore, even if there is a quality threshold in play, 1P games don't need to be above 3P quality, but 'on par'. Platform A gives you a choice of...16 'AAA' (or subjectively 5 star appeal) titles, while Platform B gives a choice of 14 the same plus...7 alternative titles. All else being equal, Platform B is the better purchase because there's more variety meaning more chance of getting something with greater synergy with your own personal tastes.

But of course the original post starting this from DrJay24 has been answered with reference to XB1 players preferring their library in higher quality rather than the extra game options on the other platform, along with a host of other value factors.

Take home is in the list of 'reasons to pick a console,' PS4 ticks the 'more game options' box, but there are many more criteria than that on which consumers make their decision and no one point should be seen as a no brainer, so having the most games doesn't trump having the best quality or having the best movie support.
 
Back
Top