Third Party Software Exclusivity Practices

I thought GTA III was well known to everybody.

 

Weird it's not mentioned on wiki.

 

Sony started the 3rd party exclusive thing in the PS/Saturn era.

 

I was specifically talking about timed locked out of DLC, I thought we were discussing the Zombies DLC and IIRC MS started that particular trend.

 

All parties are guilty, no matter who started it. Because you robbed the bank because someone else did it, doesn't make it less of a crime. These companies are going to continue to do these practices regardless of rubbing certain individuals the wrong way. And I'm all for it...

 

That's the reality. If people are deeply offended by these practices, then they are too emotionally involved in this. I'm frustrated I might lose Doom - although Doom has always ran on literally everything that runs on electricity - and basically anything from id Software, but it is what it is!

 

True. My son and I are toying with the idea of getting a PS5 DE next year just so we can get Spider-Man, TLOU series, Uncharted series, and HZD series. I realize these aren't 3rd party, but so far I've been able to live without Sony exclusives and ignore most of it as I don't have time to play everything that comes out for Xbox even, but we might take the plunge at some point. $400 is not a big deal to me, really. It probably depends on whether or not MS's 23 studios can keep me occupied enough to stop me from buying a PS5.

 

Sony started money hatting 3rd party games with Tomb Raider 2

 

Press "X" to jump. Yes, I am evil.

 

I find these morality takes on exclusivity strange. If Sony could buy Bethesda, they would. If MS could secure Spiderman exclusively, they would. If they could secure every 3rd party game, they would. It's just business for content holders in any industry. I wish people would understand this instead of assigning a faux morality to their favorite company.

 

Sony could have bought Bethesda, they would just have to have offered more money than MS. But the value of Bethesda to Sony is (IMO) way less for Sony than MS.

 

It's an interesting one. I recall the speculation over Microsoft buying WB which ended with nothing and I wonder if Sony could have faired better, not but offering more money, or even as much money, but by offering IP, media or distribution rights. Microsoft is a software and services company, a big part of Sony is media: music, TV and movies. So is Warner. Sony has a more diverse portfolio of valuable items to trade with another media organisation.

But I agree on Bethesda, Sony has never shown any inclination in investing heavily in the RPG genre, unlike Microsoft are who becoming the largest non-JPRG RPG developer in town. For Sony, RPG-lite mechanics (things to collect, craft, skill-trees etc) seems to be their thing. We've seen this in many of their first party games: The Last of Us, Horizon Zero Dawn, God War, Spider-Man, Days Gone, Ghost of Tsushima. Even Ratchet & Clank offers these mechanics - the game is the same but you get incentive to collect things and the freedom to push your skills/weapon-set in the direction you prefer.

 

Both companies clearly have enough money to buy whomever they want, more or less, but having the financial capability to do it doesn’t mean that they should, or even want to.

I feel that Bethesda fits MS much better than it ever would have with Sony. Just like I think SquareEnix, for example, would fit Sony better - even though I really hope Sony don’t go down that route.

Or maybe they should if they could fix SquareEnix’s very erratic and fluctuating quality of releases. They’re a bit all over the place in my opinion, with the odd gem drowned in a sea of mediocre-to-acceptable releases.

 

They didnt. It happened by itself due to its huge market share, ease of development and the disk medium

 

I despise such practices, but well it is the part of the industry - because gamers love feeling special. 3rd party exclusivity leads to more console sales, it will increase market share that will increase the amount of the third party deals itself due to big market share.

 

I disagree. The Saturn had a disk drive and great market share in Japan at the beginning. Sony $hats changed that. I'm not criticizing them for it as that is the way the industry involved, but I'm not going to pretend it didn't happen either.

 

I’m pretty sure exclusives hark back from the days of SNES and Genesis, and probably before that, so this may not be entirely accurate. This old argument that “Sony started it all” to imply that Sony is “evil” may not be based on a realistic appraisal of the history of this videogame industry.

 

Well, I'm not saying Sony is evil. It might even go back to Atari. But the big $hats started with Sony IIRC. They certainly didn't start with MS. Xbox was only a twinkle in Bill's eye when Sony was passing $hats to 3rd parties to squash Sega. It's business. There are no virtuous corporations. That's not their purpose. Apple, MS, Sony, Google, Amazon etc... just corporations trying to maximize profits for their shareholders.

 

Actually, Sony somewhat floundered the deal... but there is a high probability they have solidified another.

 

Sony bought CrunchyRoll from AT&T for nearly $1 Billion. They own Funimation and CrunchyRoll now.

https://www.cbr.com/what-sony-buying-crunchyroll-means-for-anime-industry/