Don't you still need a Playdate to use it? Plus, the games don't all play well in the Mirror app.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
All things considered, do you think console exclusivity in games is an overall good or bad thing?
- Thread starter ScOULaris
- Start date
It's kind of funny that we mention that consoles have effectively gone down to 3, when the same has basically happened in the PC space. Linux, Windows and Mac. In that space Windows basically has a monopoly on gaming, with only a few being ported to the other 2.
All of those platforms are open, so individuals or additional third parties can take it upon themselves to make games work on platforms devs don't want to port to, but if we're going to look at PCs as a mirror to consoles, on the works from the developer side it's actually much worse.
I disagree that exclusivity means less consumer choice. Exclusives mean more total games for players.
Words can't express how uninterested I am in console gaming as a PC gamer, first party exclusives or otherwise. Even if a company managed to convince me to buy their hardware, it's going to collect dust sitting next to exponentially more powerful hardware that could've easily ran whatever they're selling me and as a result I'm never going to be a valuable customer to them.
Good luck to anyone that sells at a loss because I'm going to do everything in my power to game the system. Buy the console from costco, buy the game used, maybe they'll get twenty bucks out of me for the DLC because that's digital and I have no alternative but that's it. Then I'm gonna return the console to costco once I'm done with it and someone's gonna foot the bill on that whole process.
I'm never going to pay for online multiplayer. I'm never going to buy third party titles so they'll never see royalties. I don't trust any of the console manufacturers with my purchases in the first place. Whole lotta hassle so they can get less out of me than they'd get off a Steam sale. Why bother? Trying to sell high-end PC gamers on their walled garden is a fool's errand.
Good luck to anyone that sells at a loss because I'm going to do everything in my power to game the system. Buy the console from costco, buy the game used, maybe they'll get twenty bucks out of me for the DLC because that's digital and I have no alternative but that's it. Then I'm gonna return the console to costco once I'm done with it and someone's gonna foot the bill on that whole process.
I'm never going to pay for online multiplayer. I'm never going to buy third party titles so they'll never see royalties. I don't trust any of the console manufacturers with my purchases in the first place. Whole lotta hassle so they can get less out of me than they'd get off a Steam sale. Why bother? Trying to sell high-end PC gamers on their walled garden is a fool's errand.
I think it starts out that way, but the more uniform the consoles get, the more the industry winds up with "the one console." I voted mixed, because I'd like to have all of my games in one spot, but deep down I feel like an industry with no exclusives is an industry with only one console.
But heck, depending on where you live we're there already anyway.
I don't really understand all the "unique strength of the platform" arguments when talking about modern console.
Aside from some switch games that heavily use motion controls - there's no such thing.
Hell, platform agnostic VR headsets are more of a departure than the difference between the switch and a high end PC.
We aren't in the era where multiple firms are figuring out what a good processor architecture is anymore. Sony and MS essentially use the same. And Nintendo uses the other, extremely common one.
Any "unique strength" like a super special SSD or BUS or whatever else the hardware makers like to talk about is pure marketing speak. Modern computing devices use a few very common components. Hell, the API's might be the biggest differentiator left.
Aside from some switch games that heavily use motion controls - there's no such thing.
Hell, platform agnostic VR headsets are more of a departure than the difference between the switch and a high end PC.
We aren't in the era where multiple firms are figuring out what a good processor architecture is anymore. Sony and MS essentially use the same. And Nintendo uses the other, extremely common one.
Any "unique strength" like a super special SSD or BUS or whatever else the hardware makers like to talk about is pure marketing speak. Modern computing devices use a few very common components. Hell, the API's might be the biggest differentiator left.
What about those developers who need the money and that's why they do it? Tough luck? Ember Labs who did Kena is a prime example; they have spoken about how much PlayStation helped out heaps with funding and marketing. That game looks as good as it does because they had a publisher helping them out financially.
As much as Era dislikes third party exclusives, it's stuff like Final Fantasy that is used as an example, when in reality most times exclusives are smaller studios who most likely just need some extra funding, and a way to do that is release exclusivity for a period of time. Both Xbox and PlayStation do a great job supporting indies who sometimes have an exclusive window, that's not a bad thing. That helps those developers, gives them a safety net.
Definitely bad, I don't know why anyone in their right mind wants to buy two boxes with nearly identical hardware and maintain multiple subscriptions when they could have access to everything with just one.
Its like thinking both HD-dvd and Blu-ray co-existing, each with exclusive movies, would be a good thing.
Its like thinking both HD-dvd and Blu-ray co-existing, each with exclusive movies, would be a good thing.
Bad, especially when you get companies making deals to keep third-party games off other platforms for X period of time when they could have been multi-platform.
Nintendo is the only one that kinda gets to get away with it because it's their own games on their own console so it's basically their way or the highway on those.
Nintendo is the only one that kinda gets to get away with it because it's their own games on their own console so it's basically their way or the highway on those.
As a developer, I love the idea of just making a game for one system and being done. No worries about porting, no worries about variable controls or weird displays, or following every platform's special rules - you know what you need to do and then you do it and are done. However, I also love the idea of continuing to have money to feed my family. It's hard to reconcile the two as a small indie dev. Like if Sony or Nintendo or Microsoft or whoever came to me and said, "Here's a budget, we want you to make a game for us and it'll be exclusive to our system," if the terms were fair, I'd jump on that, but such a scenario is not going to happen out of the blue. And going to Nintendo and pitching "I'd like to make a retro-style Super Mario RPG but using Kirby or Zelda instead of Mario" would be too fun, but they'd probably say no and then all the time spent making a vertical slice & a pitch would be wasted.
I'd love to make a Playdate game, but right now, it's hard to justify doing that as part of my work since it doesn't sound like the audience is big enough to justify the time spend on development. However, if I had more free time, it'd be fun to make one as more of a hobby.
I'd love to make a Playdate game, but right now, it's hard to justify doing that as part of my work since it doesn't sound like the audience is big enough to justify the time spend on development. However, if I had more free time, it'd be fun to make one as more of a hobby.
Third party exclusives are bad. They're short sighted, anti-competitive and do nothing for the quality of the game no matter how they justify it. They're only acceptable in fringe cases such as Bayonetta where it's totally believable that the sequels wouldn't exist without Nintendo.
First party exclusives are great though and I don't know how anybody could be against them. Most of the time the arguements against them come across as nothing but whining. They usually offer more artistic freedom than third party AAA games, they create games and jobs that wouldn't have existed otherwise and they drive competition. Acquisitions are bad but again, there are cases such as Ninja Theory and Double Fine where those studios may not have lasted long independently.
First party exclusives are great though and I don't know how anybody could be against them. Most of the time the arguements against them come across as nothing but whining. They usually offer more artistic freedom than third party AAA games, they create games and jobs that wouldn't have existed otherwise and they drive competition. Acquisitions are bad but again, there are cases such as Ninja Theory and Double Fine where those studios may not have lasted long independently.
I would call it a "good" thing. But some of the best games ever made are exclusives and they would not have been made at all without that exclusivity. Certainly not with the same budget. It also leads to some of the most technically impressive games because developers only have to focus on one platform. So, I mean, it undeniably leads to good games. That's what we've always known though so it's hard to speculate how things might be different.
It's getting harder and harder to justify exclusive multiplayer games, I will say that much. Cross-play and cross-progression should be the standard for all multiplayer games moving forward. It's better for everyone, including the health of the game.
It's getting harder and harder to justify exclusive multiplayer games, I will say that much. Cross-play and cross-progression should be the standard for all multiplayer games moving forward. It's better for everyone, including the health of the game.
Seeing as I'd prefer to live in the timeline where multiple systems just didn't exist and you just buy mobile, TV, or computer devices at varying power and costs that can play everything within the limitation of the console, I'd say no. But I'm guessing economics is nowhere as simple as that, so I'm mixed.
Companies don't spend millions of dollars on console exclusives or buying up developers because they don't see massive payoffs. I'm also a pretty big believer in that competition drives innovation in the video game market. I don't want it to exist, but I'm not gonna decry it as the end of the world. There's plenty of games out there, if somebody decides I can't play a specific one, I'll either just give in if I want to play it THAT bad, or just move on.
Companies don't spend millions of dollars on console exclusives or buying up developers because they don't see massive payoffs. I'm also a pretty big believer in that competition drives innovation in the video game market. I don't want it to exist, but I'm not gonna decry it as the end of the world. There's plenty of games out there, if somebody decides I can't play a specific one, I'll either just give in if I want to play it THAT bad, or just move on.
The only legitimate value consoles have is there are games that the publish that likely would have never existed in an open space.
No one wants to if you just simplify it like that, but you just end up cherrypicking stuff to make the argument this way. The games we get as exclusives from first party studios 100% wouldn't exist as the exact same products (or at all in many cases) if there wasn't a console manufacturer funding them. The budgets are larger and the games get to be more ambitious when the only incentive for them to exist isn't just to make money from copies sold, but to also sell the consoles and build the brand.
First party exclusives are fine and good. I want Nintendo games designed around their consoles and their features. Likewise, I'd enjoy PS5 exclusive games that used its features more too - Astro's Playroom was fantastic and I'd love more like that (unzipping with the touch pad was super satisfying for example).
Recently I was playing Shadow of the Colossus on my PS2 again. It's one of my all time favorites and it makes an interesting case about exclusive games.
If that game was made for any other system of that gen, it likely would've been easier to develop and ran better. As it though it runs incredibly poor and has pretty bad LOD pop in due to the PS2's weird hardware. It's just barely able to capture the creator's vision.
Yet one (me) could argue that those limitations and unique challenges the hardware presented are what made the game what it is. The game I love.
There's a magical feeling playing that game on its original hardware and seeing said hardware being pushed to its absolute limit. Back then most exclusives had a unique sound and look to them that represented the unique priorities of the hardware they were made for. Going back further; If you made an NES game back in the day, you probably incorporated background scrolling because, holy moly, it supported screen scrolling! Similarly, the PS1 had so much space for textures compared to its competition we saw pre rendered background games almost exclusively on that machine.
But that was then, and this is now. The PS5 and Series X are extremely similar machines, and all three consoles use x86 chips (Sorry Switch is an ARM chip but i
Hope you see my point which is it's a preexisting architecture and Nintnendo didn't make it as much as it was provided for them ). The development of games for these systems today rarely take into account their unique features because there's not much. The PS5 has a criminally underutilized controller but everything else the console offers is QOL improvements thanks to the SSD. Even then less games than I thought use features like activity cards. The Series machines bring even less to the table than that. The Switch also has some neat controllers and portability, but not much new to force games on it to function, play, or even look that different (unless you count just worse).
I think some of the best games in the industry were once exclusive. Not just because "the need to sell a console means you must make good games", because plenty third parties who made exclusives probably would've ported if it was easier/more justifiable back then. They were amazing because they took advantage of a unique machine to the fullest. That's the best aspect of exclusives.
They still do, but it's less exciting and and less justifiable not to just spread your audience as wide as possible. When I see FF7rebirth on PS5 only, I'm not as impressed by how much it's utilizing the PS5 and more annoyed this wonderful game can't be in more people's hands on their similar machines.
I really hope the next switch is as exciting as the first was when that launched, and same goes for the other platforms. Cause then I can be excited for something to be exclusive again. As of right now, it's just annoying.
If that game was made for any other system of that gen, it likely would've been easier to develop and ran better. As it though it runs incredibly poor and has pretty bad LOD pop in due to the PS2's weird hardware. It's just barely able to capture the creator's vision.
Yet one (me) could argue that those limitations and unique challenges the hardware presented are what made the game what it is. The game I love.
There's a magical feeling playing that game on its original hardware and seeing said hardware being pushed to its absolute limit. Back then most exclusives had a unique sound and look to them that represented the unique priorities of the hardware they were made for. Going back further; If you made an NES game back in the day, you probably incorporated background scrolling because, holy moly, it supported screen scrolling! Similarly, the PS1 had so much space for textures compared to its competition we saw pre rendered background games almost exclusively on that machine.
But that was then, and this is now. The PS5 and Series X are extremely similar machines, and all three consoles use x86 chips (Sorry Switch is an ARM chip but i
Hope you see my point which is it's a preexisting architecture and Nintnendo didn't make it as much as it was provided for them ). The development of games for these systems today rarely take into account their unique features because there's not much. The PS5 has a criminally underutilized controller but everything else the console offers is QOL improvements thanks to the SSD. Even then less games than I thought use features like activity cards. The Series machines bring even less to the table than that. The Switch also has some neat controllers and portability, but not much new to force games on it to function, play, or even look that different (unless you count just worse).
I think some of the best games in the industry were once exclusive. Not just because "the need to sell a console means you must make good games", because plenty third parties who made exclusives probably would've ported if it was easier/more justifiable back then. They were amazing because they took advantage of a unique machine to the fullest. That's the best aspect of exclusives.
They still do, but it's less exciting and and less justifiable not to just spread your audience as wide as possible. When I see FF7rebirth on PS5 only, I'm not as impressed by how much it's utilizing the PS5 and more annoyed this wonderful game can't be in more people's hands on their similar machines.
I really hope the next switch is as exciting as the first was when that launched, and same goes for the other platforms. Cause then I can be excited for something to be exclusive again. As of right now, it's just annoying.
Last edited:
It's actually getting difficult for the budgets (of exclusives) to be larger, simply because what allows a larger budget is targeting multiple platforms now. If you only target one system, you're probably lowering the budget or will soon have to do so.
The most expensive games going forwards will be those that aren't exclusive. They will set the industry standard, whether it's something like GTAVI, Microsoft and Sony multiplatform games or titles from other third parties. The only real exception now is something like Star Citizen and that's a special case.
It's a bad thing when a game is exclusive and dies with the platform it is exclusive to.
All other options can be equally good and bad but generally a game should be launched on all platforms capable of running it. This gives the players a choice of what platform they consider to be the best instead of forcing them to buy into something which they don't like or need.
All other options can be equally good and bad but generally a game should be launched on all platforms capable of running it. This gives the players a choice of what platform they consider to be the best instead of forcing them to buy into something which they don't like or need.
Bad. Every game getting a PC release wouldn't leave us in a place where we are stuck with technical issues due to limitations in hardware. It's then the freedom of the end user to throw money at the problem with better PC hardware.
Plus every game getting a PC release would be preservation heaven.
Plus every game getting a PC release would be preservation heaven.
They have always been a good thing I think. It's what distinguishes one platform from another, especially these days since there's no exotic architecture anymore.
The World Ends With You is a nice example of this. Its subsequent ports notwithstanding (but I like those too).
Unique platform and control scheme invited unique ideas.
Exclusives are great until they're not on people's platform of choice.
You'd have widely different opinions about it in a way or the other if FFVII Rebirth was an Xbox exclusive instead of a PS exclusive.
You'd have widely different opinions about it in a way or the other if FFVII Rebirth was an Xbox exclusive instead of a PS exclusive.
Exclusives had a role in the past, which are becoming increasingly redundant. At the rate things are going they will be a thing of the past. I call that progess. The way things were done in the 90s and 00s should not be a consideration when looking at the future of gaming. It's antiquated, it's like looking back at the 1950s with rose tinted glasses. Let exclusives die out, luckily the market is dictating they will.
I specifically said metroid prime, I don't even own a Nintendo and I'm aware of that title, sounds like it's time for Nintendo to go multiplat if they can only get three million on their own audience
Yes, but where's the proof that "you're probably lowering the budget or will soon have to do so"? Something like Spider-Man 2 is an exception when the licensing costs are so massive, but in general I don't see any real indication of budgets getting cut in a major way other than pure speculation.
Of course GTA VI is more expensive than any exclusive, or any other game, but it doesn't change the fact that vast majority of first party AAA exclusives are still consistently higher quality than AAA titles in general (with some exceptions of course), and that's because the console manufacturers need to also sell the consoles and build the brand. It doesn't always mean the game is really expensive, but more often than not that's also the case.
It's a uniquely bad form of consumer abuse without many points of comparison in other consumer entertainment industries.
unfortunately the uniqueness is what keeps the exclusives hard to regulate. unlike competing TV manufacturers, the software running on consoles is developed to run on specific pieces of hardware. How would PS3's cell architecture exclusives worked ported to Xbox 360? How can a court force Sony to port Killzone 2 to the Xbox 360? How can a court force Microsoft to port Halo Infinite to a Nintendo Switch? I guess we'll see with however the call of duty agreement Microsoft made with Nintendo looks. I have to imagine that in that case it's an inferior or possibly a fundamentally different version of the game?
Any enforcement of multiplatform parity would need to be incredibly nuanced and industry-led because I'm not sure there's a world where you get certain games (like cell architecture PS3 exclusives) if companies have to port to other platforms. Maybe there's some sort of deal where as long as a party is willing to cover the cost of time and labor of getting a product ported, with no guarantee of how well it goes, a good faith attempt needs to be made? Seems really hard to enforce that kind of relationship between Microsoft and PlayStation. Some products are simply built with specific hardware in mind and would be difficult or impossible to replicate exactly elsewhere.
unfortunately the uniqueness is what keeps the exclusives hard to regulate. unlike competing TV manufacturers, the software running on consoles is developed to run on specific pieces of hardware. How would PS3's cell architecture exclusives worked ported to Xbox 360? How can a court force Sony to port Killzone 2 to the Xbox 360? How can a court force Microsoft to port Halo Infinite to a Nintendo Switch? I guess we'll see with however the call of duty agreement Microsoft made with Nintendo looks. I have to imagine that in that case it's an inferior or possibly a fundamentally different version of the game?
Any enforcement of multiplatform parity would need to be incredibly nuanced and industry-led because I'm not sure there's a world where you get certain games (like cell architecture PS3 exclusives) if companies have to port to other platforms. Maybe there's some sort of deal where as long as a party is willing to cover the cost of time and labor of getting a product ported, with no guarantee of how well it goes, a good faith attempt needs to be made? Seems really hard to enforce that kind of relationship between Microsoft and PlayStation. Some products are simply built with specific hardware in mind and would be difficult or impossible to replicate exactly elsewhere.
Not all of us, some of us are capable of critical thinking. I only game on PC and would love to have played FF16 at launch. But I also think exclusives are an important part of the industry. The question posed in the thread didn't really ask my personal opinion.
The proof is that the games are no longer exclusives. They're becoming multiplatform. If they weren't becoming multiplatform, they'd be hitting the budget ceiling soon.
I'm not talking about quality, as that's a different thing entirely, only budgets. And moving forwards multiplatform titles will be the most expensive in the industry, aside from special cases like Star Citizen or WoW.
You cannot have the most expensive games in the industry targeting only one system, which is why the most expensive games will be multiplatform. Even Microsoft and Sony are multiplatform now. You're not gonna see the most expensive titles from them, only releasing on their own platform.
I voted overall good, but I expect my answer to change over the next 10 years with the industry. Currently and historically exclusivity is the reason for many games receiving funding and I think removing that in a blanket matter would crumble the economics of the industry, but I think as costs rise the opposite is becoming the case where in the infinite growth of capitalism you hit a wall of how much value you can extract from the same customer base.
Exclusivity also brings an allure and focus to certain titles where consumer behaviour (and you can argue it's stupid all you want, but it's true) means that exclusive titles are what gets the most discussion and the most attention.
This of course is becoming decreasingly important with live service games and the casual audience mostly plays multiplat titles but in terms of the console fan base and for the most part, within the single player games market, exclusive games are those given the most attention.
I do think consoles would be way more boring without exclusives though, and less subjectively competitive. By this I mean currently the tastes of individuals is the most important distinguishing factor between which console to buy, instead of in an agnostic future where smaller OS features and pure performance will be the difference maker. To me it'll kinda end up being an AMD vs Nvidia situation where the differences aren't very interesting.
This isn't necessarily that bad of a thing, but I do personally put some value on how fun it is to be a fan of a platform because well we're talking about games.
On the contrary though, as a consumer I do think Sony and Nintendo are much more likely to get my money if I could buy their games on Xbox, because I don't want to play Sony games badly enough to buy a new console and Nintendo games I use *redacted* because the switch has horrible performance.
I think the advent of game pass has made it much easier for me to imagine a multiplat console future, considering that is a feature that could genuinely create allure towards the console without the need for exclusivity. I do kinda feel that if a company makes games they should have the right to publish them where ever makes the most sense, albeit everywhere of on multiple platforms or exclusively on their own and don't want to see a regulatory bill forcing it.
I don't love exclusivity but I continue to kinda see it as a necessary evil for building a fandom on specific platforms and drawing people to bespoke gaming hardware. I do think it remains to be seen however if this will be necessary in the future, especially as younger generations gaming use tends to trend towards PC and mobile. If exclusives go away fully I'd maybe miss them slightly but would probably play more games overall.
Exclusivity also brings an allure and focus to certain titles where consumer behaviour (and you can argue it's stupid all you want, but it's true) means that exclusive titles are what gets the most discussion and the most attention.
This of course is becoming decreasingly important with live service games and the casual audience mostly plays multiplat titles but in terms of the console fan base and for the most part, within the single player games market, exclusive games are those given the most attention.
I do think consoles would be way more boring without exclusives though, and less subjectively competitive. By this I mean currently the tastes of individuals is the most important distinguishing factor between which console to buy, instead of in an agnostic future where smaller OS features and pure performance will be the difference maker. To me it'll kinda end up being an AMD vs Nvidia situation where the differences aren't very interesting.
This isn't necessarily that bad of a thing, but I do personally put some value on how fun it is to be a fan of a platform because well we're talking about games.
On the contrary though, as a consumer I do think Sony and Nintendo are much more likely to get my money if I could buy their games on Xbox, because I don't want to play Sony games badly enough to buy a new console and Nintendo games I use *redacted* because the switch has horrible performance.
I think the advent of game pass has made it much easier for me to imagine a multiplat console future, considering that is a feature that could genuinely create allure towards the console without the need for exclusivity. I do kinda feel that if a company makes games they should have the right to publish them where ever makes the most sense, albeit everywhere of on multiple platforms or exclusively on their own and don't want to see a regulatory bill forcing it.
I don't love exclusivity but I continue to kinda see it as a necessary evil for building a fandom on specific platforms and drawing people to bespoke gaming hardware. I do think it remains to be seen however if this will be necessary in the future, especially as younger generations gaming use tends to trend towards PC and mobile. If exclusives go away fully I'd maybe miss them slightly but would probably play more games overall.
I mean, the question in the thread litterally asks for your personal opinion.
When it comes to exclusives, it's always like that: Good when it's on your platform of choice, Bad when it's not.
There's a reason why there is a strong pushback when a game is exclusive to a platform isn't exclusive to the leading platform in a generation in term of sales.
As for being important in the industry: Important for whom ? There's that idea in which "if it wasn't for exclusivity, many titles wouldn't be made". People forget that even 1st parties are in the business of selling games. Why do they want to sell you a platform ? To sell you games on it. Hence why they're willing to reduce their margins on the hardware. Sony isn't making Spiderman 2 only because they want to sell you a PS5, but also because they want to sell 20 million of copies and strengthen their brand in term of recognition when it comes to quality.
What games exactly? If you compare exclusives from five or ten years ago to exclusives now, I don't see much difference in the big picture in terms of reasoning behind exclusives. Yes, Sony is on PC with delayed releases, but the exclusives they make still serve the exact same purpose as before.
How is quality a different thing? It takes resources and investment to have a top tier, fully polished game. Depending on the scope of the game you then compare it to other similar products on a specific system. You can't simply separate quality from a game just "being the most expensive" thing on the market. You aren't going to see the most expensive titles from anyone else than Rockstar and Cloud Imperium Games if that's somehow the only important part here.
Sony and Nintendo aren't multiplatform in the slightest when you actually compare their similar exclusives from the past to present.
I must have live most sheltered pre-Interent and Interent life because literally the takes I'm reading here? Wow, mindblown.
That if not exclusives, some games would not have been made? That is hardly verifiable but very unlikely given present situation with overabudance of video games in all shapes and form. IP hoarding and IP restrictions are the real reason for a lot of titles disappearing.
That first party exclusives are of higher quality then thrid party multiplatform games and then paired with calling this site hardcore PC gaming site, just wow.
I mean it has to be rationalization for brand loyality/enlighted platform warring becasue it doeas not make sense at even tiniest pretense of objective analysis.
That if not exclusives, some games would not have been made? That is hardly verifiable but very unlikely given present situation with overabudance of video games in all shapes and form. IP hoarding and IP restrictions are the real reason for a lot of titles disappearing.
That first party exclusives are of higher quality then thrid party multiplatform games and then paired with calling this site hardcore PC gaming site, just wow.
I mean it has to be rationalization for brand loyality/enlighted platform warring becasue it doeas not make sense at even tiniest pretense of objective analysis.
"All of them", which should not be taken literally, but more as a trend indicator. There will be very few examples of the highest budget games going forwards being exclusive to only one platform. I gave a few in my other responses and it'll be titles like that.
Sony and Microsoft are done with games at that budget level being exclusive to only their own system. Nintendo will eventually have to make a decision on raising budgets and removing exclusivity or keeping budgets in line with what exclusivity allows, even if it's still some years away.
This is not something I'm really interested in discussing, but just as an example you can make a very expensive game that isn't quality, as the latter says something about how the game comes together.
My point is your claim that exclusives have larger budgets, is coming to an end. You can't keep a game exclusive to one system in most cases, if you want them to have the highest budgets. That's just the clear trend going forward, even if there will be exceptions like the aforementioned Star Citizen.
You're free to disagree of course, but maybe then try to write your thoughts down a bit more (i.e. what do you think makes sense then?) without just resorting to how the opinions are "just wow" and how your mind was so blown.
So basically none of them at the moment. I'll believe it when I actually see it.
Exclusives have had in general and more consistently higher budgets and more polish than majority of comparable games on a specific platform. There are exceptions of course but only a handful of games in the end. However nothing is more expensive than GTA VI or Star Citizen, so that type of discussion takes us nowhere.
You're seeing it as we speak. The vast majority of the most expensive titles in the industry are multiplatform now, aside from special cases as mentioned. Even Microsoft and Sony have gone multiplatform and that will continue. Their games will no longer be released on just their own console.
Last edited:
Exclusivity is a bad thing overall.
Why would anybody want to buy multiple pieces of hardware that do the same thing?
PlayStation 4/Xbox One, PlayStation 5/Series X - they're basically the same thing running a different OS.
Any hardware differences between them are minuscule.
Imagine if they ran the same software stack and you could play the total sum of games released for them, on any of those boxes. You just pick the one with the interface/identity that you prefer.
I see people blaming multiplatform development for the low standard that many games are shipping in these days, but I really don't think it's the cause.
That's more to do with scope/feature creep, unrealistic plans, the way games are generally made today, and poor management - both internally and externally from the publisher.
Looking further back, it made more sense.
Hardware was much more diverse, with unique strengths and weaknesses, and you'd really be making an entirely separate version of a game - so you often had to pick one platform.
Nintendo, in particular, did a lot of interesting things with the DS/Wii that can't really be replicated without that specific hardware.
But I don't know that it's a good argument against everything being an AMD x86 APU now.
I think the significantly lower cost of development, and shorter dev cycles back then, played a big role in developers being willing to try something on the Wii/DS.
The Switch doesn't really have anything unique about it, other than being portable; but look at how it's treated today.
Most of what's released for it are just low quality ports of the same games available everywhere else. Few games are actually built on a smaller scale to target the strengths of the platform.
I do wonder how things would go if, say Nintendo went with a low-power AMD x86 APU for their next hybrid handheld system, with some kind of unique input method, and went multi-platform.
(hypothetically - I know they are going with an NVIDIA ARM one for Switch 2).
If all you had to buy as the price of entry was a Bluetooth controller (if you didn't care for their handheld part) how would that affect the sales of Nintendo games?
Would they go from selling tens of millions to hundreds?
Would they fall into obscurity without having people "buy in" to the platform and make it part of their identity?
Or would it not shift the needle much at all?
I think Nintendo's games have a pretty strong identity, but I really don't care for the Switch as a system.
The hybrid handheld design was unique back in 2017; but it's done better (for me) by devices like the Steam Deck now.
The Switch as a platform does not really have much identity to me. It feels pretty utilitarian, compared to something like the Wii - which has a lot of personality.
And I can't say that I like buying into a platform being run by Nintendo, considering the costs, and how they treat things like their legacy titles and backwards compatibility.
Why would anybody want to buy multiple pieces of hardware that do the same thing?
PlayStation 4/Xbox One, PlayStation 5/Series X - they're basically the same thing running a different OS.
Any hardware differences between them are minuscule.
Imagine if they ran the same software stack and you could play the total sum of games released for them, on any of those boxes. You just pick the one with the interface/identity that you prefer.
I see people blaming multiplatform development for the low standard that many games are shipping in these days, but I really don't think it's the cause.
That's more to do with scope/feature creep, unrealistic plans, the way games are generally made today, and poor management - both internally and externally from the publisher.
Looking further back, it made more sense.
Hardware was much more diverse, with unique strengths and weaknesses, and you'd really be making an entirely separate version of a game - so you often had to pick one platform.
Nintendo, in particular, did a lot of interesting things with the DS/Wii that can't really be replicated without that specific hardware.
But I don't know that it's a good argument against everything being an AMD x86 APU now.
I think the significantly lower cost of development, and shorter dev cycles back then, played a big role in developers being willing to try something on the Wii/DS.
The Switch doesn't really have anything unique about it, other than being portable; but look at how it's treated today.
Most of what's released for it are just low quality ports of the same games available everywhere else. Few games are actually built on a smaller scale to target the strengths of the platform.
I do wonder how things would go if, say Nintendo went with a low-power AMD x86 APU for their next hybrid handheld system, with some kind of unique input method, and went multi-platform.
(hypothetically - I know they are going with an NVIDIA ARM one for Switch 2).
If all you had to buy as the price of entry was a Bluetooth controller (if you didn't care for their handheld part) how would that affect the sales of Nintendo games?
Would they go from selling tens of millions to hundreds?
Would they fall into obscurity without having people "buy in" to the platform and make it part of their identity?
Or would it not shift the needle much at all?
I think Nintendo's games have a pretty strong identity, but I really don't care for the Switch as a system.
The hybrid handheld design was unique back in 2017; but it's done better (for me) by devices like the Steam Deck now.
The Switch as a platform does not really have much identity to me. It feels pretty utilitarian, compared to something like the Wii - which has a lot of personality.
And I can't say that I like buying into a platform being run by Nintendo, considering the costs, and how they treat things like their legacy titles and backwards compatibility.
Exclusives are good, even third party exclusives. In the past, people chose their console based on the exclusives they got. No one got angry because they got a Gamecube and expected to get FFX, or got a PS2 and expected Super Mario Sunshine. Everyone knew what they were getting when they bought in on a console back in those days, and there wasn't such a huge sense of entitlement to getting everything as there is now. The different exclusives on each console led to unique ecosystems between them, and each of these ecosystems built up different audiences that would be continuously fed the type of content that they liked.
Now we have people whining anytime third-party exclusives get announced. We have this strange juxtaposition where people moan the lack of PS5 games and hearken back to the glory days of past generations, but don't want to acknowledge that third-party exclusives built those past generations. There are so many games that wouldn't exist without exclusivity, and so many that won't exist in the future if exclusivity dies.
Exclusives enhance gaming, they do not diminish them.
Now we have people whining anytime third-party exclusives get announced. We have this strange juxtaposition where people moan the lack of PS5 games and hearken back to the glory days of past generations, but don't want to acknowledge that third-party exclusives built those past generations. There are so many games that wouldn't exist without exclusivity, and so many that won't exist in the future if exclusivity dies.
Exclusives enhance gaming, they do not diminish them.
This is going to sound really weird... but like...
2nd, and 3rd gen consoles (specifically XBOX/360 and PS2/PS3) as well older consoles had more selling points as hardware.
This is actually something I personally have been thinking about. I think exclusivity is fine in moderation, but I think console publishers have leaned too hard into it as a selling point of their systems. Instead of innovating on their hardware in meaningful ways we get small iterative upgrades in graphical power and less focus on interesting selling points.
It's actually why I like the PS5 so much. I love the controller, and the loading times being so non-existant is a really cool feature.
I think exclusives being a systems only selling point hurts consumers because it creates an irritating problem. If the only reason you really own something is because it has a specific game on it - how redundant is that console in your device ecosystem.
Weirldy what's made me think about this so hard... is the Playdate of all things. I got one recently and I have a hard time putting it down... the crank is actually fun, and the experience it gives is so unique with games like Mars after Midnight, and Bloom... that my other devices can't give me the same experience.
It's a unique gimmicky system (people hate on gimmicks too much), and while it has exclusives - it isn't the exclusives that sold me on it alone. I actually play a lot of Tetris on it too lol!
I kind of miss when game consoles used to use more gimmicks and ideas. I like the Dual Sense. I liked the GC controller... I liked the OG XBOX controller... I likes the VMU and Dreamcast controller... and I loved the WiiU gamepad (even if it was underutilized).
The over-reliance on exclusivity in console gaming has made a lot of games feel boring and samey... there aren't enough weird peripherals, and gimmicks.
Of course there are exceptions (Hi-Fi Rush was innovative and in my personal opinion a console seller...)
So I'm mixed. I think they're fine in moderation and if the execute on a consoles individual strengths should they have any, but when consoles feel largely homogenized I think they're just a cheap tactic and trick to try and pull people into your eco-system.
2nd, and 3rd gen consoles (specifically XBOX/360 and PS2/PS3) as well older consoles had more selling points as hardware.
This is actually something I personally have been thinking about. I think exclusivity is fine in moderation, but I think console publishers have leaned too hard into it as a selling point of their systems. Instead of innovating on their hardware in meaningful ways we get small iterative upgrades in graphical power and less focus on interesting selling points.
It's actually why I like the PS5 so much. I love the controller, and the loading times being so non-existant is a really cool feature.
I think exclusives being a systems only selling point hurts consumers because it creates an irritating problem. If the only reason you really own something is because it has a specific game on it - how redundant is that console in your device ecosystem.
Weirldy what's made me think about this so hard... is the Playdate of all things. I got one recently and I have a hard time putting it down... the crank is actually fun, and the experience it gives is so unique with games like Mars after Midnight, and Bloom... that my other devices can't give me the same experience.
It's a unique gimmicky system (people hate on gimmicks too much), and while it has exclusives - it isn't the exclusives that sold me on it alone. I actually play a lot of Tetris on it too lol!
I kind of miss when game consoles used to use more gimmicks and ideas. I like the Dual Sense. I liked the GC controller... I liked the OG XBOX controller... I likes the VMU and Dreamcast controller... and I loved the WiiU gamepad (even if it was underutilized).
The over-reliance on exclusivity in console gaming has made a lot of games feel boring and samey... there aren't enough weird peripherals, and gimmicks.
Of course there are exceptions (Hi-Fi Rush was innovative and in my personal opinion a console seller...)
So I'm mixed. I think they're fine in moderation and if the execute on a consoles individual strengths should they have any, but when consoles feel largely homogenized I think they're just a cheap tactic and trick to try and pull people into your eco-system.
I really, really wish Rebirth had been day 1 on PC. I still enjoyed it on PS5 but I wish I could've maxed it out on my rig...
Yeah I remember when FF7 jumped to PlayStation because of the N64 cart limitations and how civil gracious and good natured the discourse was at the time lmao
So you think Sony would have happily funded a 300 million spider-man without mtx if it could lead to no PlayStation sales or increased activity in their ecosystem? If that is the case, why didn't Activision do that when they had the license?
In a world where consoles are quite similar to one another, the main difference comes down to software. So therefore I believe that - at least from a single player point of view - there is incentive from platform holders for their game to look great and to run great, to show off the power of the console. Massive big budget single player games are becoming more and more rare, and PlayStation is one of the few who still consistently does it, because they believe in doing so would make people buy a PlayStation.
It's what everyone wants, to get customers into their ecosystem, that's all this is for. And exclusives are one way to do that, and making those exclusives as good as possible is just appealing. It's pretty logical really.
I personally don't think that is a very platform warring take, especially since I don't even own a single console anymore, but you can disagree if you so wish.
1st party exclusives are mostly a good thing as it encourages platform holders to make the biggest and best games possible.
2nd party can be ok if the platform holders are putting in additional resources to make the game better, especially if the game eventually comes to other platforms.
3rd party money hats are almost always bad for consumers as it just takes away from other platforms.
2nd party can be ok if the platform holders are putting in additional resources to make the game better, especially if the game eventually comes to other platforms.
3rd party money hats are almost always bad for consumers as it just takes away from other platforms.