Now that exclusives are dead, all gamers lose

[KenaiPhoenix]

It is something I have been thinking for a while, now that Sony and Xbox are selling most of their games in each other platforms and on PC, besides Nintendo, exclusives are dead. And this is a bad thing.

Yeah in the narrow view of things exclusives are an abuse for the gamers because you need to get all systems to enjoy all the best games of a generation, but if you widen you analysis you will see that even if thats true, gamers ultimately win by getting better games in this competition of "My platform has better games".

I will elaborate

When Halo launched on the original Xbox it put this new comer in the spotlight and forced the other companies to also have some kind of "mature" FPS in their systems, by starting projects or just booting with finance already developed ideas. I will focus on Metroid Prime for the Gamecube and Killzone for the PlayStation, both systems has some other FPS, but they needed their own, something that you cant play on Xbox after finishing Halo.

Metroid Prime was a success (at least critically) having a gritty FPS on the GameCube, but Killzone was just "Meh". Anyone that played it knows it. It is not bad, but nothing spectacular either, you could live without it. It probably didnt deserve a sequel but Sony needed something to go against the hypothetically Halo 3 of the new 360, so Killzone 2 was born... and it is really REALLY good, even being played to this day.

Companies will fund and develop exclusives because even if they are not that profitable they will allow them to sell consoles, and they can make it up with license there. Of course it is just cheaper to just release games on all platforms, specially on these days with even the game engines being standardized.

And I know, it sucked to have a PlayStation because you wanted Devil May Cry and missed Halo, but in a world without exclusive you would have Halo on the PS2, but you would not have Metroid Prime or Killzone (or at very best, a not that very good one, since companies would have spent less).

In a more modern example: if CoD would have become an Xbox PC exclusive, Sony would have been in panic and would be developing their own fast phased FPS CoD competitor, maybe resurrect Killzone. Maybe in order to get more players just ditch down the crazy monetization trying to get the people tired of this... but we get nothing because why would they just do it, if they can spent less money on just a "PS Plus package" of CoD? The game is anywhere regardless.

Like the title says: now that exclusives are dead, all gamers lose

 

[PhaseJump]

Metroid Prime wasn't even considered an FPS, even when it launched. It was a 3D conversion of the old action platformer, and people coming from Halo used to laugh at it being so slow and cumbersome. You couldn't run and gun in it, you had to stop to aim. All that is beside the point.

Exclusives are stupid. A byproduct of a bygone era where hardware differences mattered.

Developing software and limiting it to the established customer base on a specific locked down platform kills potential sales returns on the up-front marketing, and it's largely a death sentence when development budgets are too high.

Multi-platform game studios have been targeting portable middleware or game engines and making a lot of money pleasing everybody they can, but they have had failures when being time limited exclusives. Late-ports to other platforms lose the immediate launch buzz, have weaker sales potential.

Customized hardware that went into consoles used to require specialized expertise at the low level, decades later and development is a different ball game. The hardware is largely the same and standardized. Platforms are just store fronts you're locked into that should be running on top of the open PC market so that anybody can do what they want.


If Nintendo were to "sell" half of the shit that people are decompiling and porting to PC, they would annihilate their own sales records by remaining locked to crappy toy hardware. Their quality would speak for itself. They would probably triple lifetime sales of their games like Zelda and Mario overnight.

 

[VidiyaGaemer]

I'm inclined to agree. There's less reasons to go after specific consoles with exclusives being reduced. And in a sense the "magic" is gone too.....I feel like there was more hype for console exclusives like midnight launches and the like

 

[Bakuma1997]

On one hand, that will mean no more having to buy software for a single game

On another hand exclusives being gone means we are hozed since no more competence will be practiced

 

[Lod 10]

Para oIn my humble opinion, which is worthless, I think it's good to end this thing about exclusive games. For example, if we buy it, we have the same game for Xbox; if we have the same game for...

 

[JellyjamLu]

Since competition is dying away, that means even less innovation now. less reason to care by competing developers, less risk taking in general and mainly pump out whatever works. Exclusives imo is still important though as it made other consoles try at least a little harder.

 

[Rocket2049]

i wish exclusives were dead.
i still can't play zelda, metroid, mario pokemon, f-zero, kirby, donkey kong, xenoblade, pikmin, animal crossing, fire emblem, splatoon on any platform BUT nintendo hardware.
there's a lot of games on switch and switch 2 that cannot be played otherwise (unless you emulate)

i can't play Gran turismo, astro bot, little big planet, uncharted, tsushima, infamous, on any other platform but sony hardware. it's not a LOT (especially with most coming to PC now, god of war, horizon spiderman, last of us, death stranding, etc.)

xbox... well I really don't know what's STILL exclusive, and not on PC either,
but plenty of games are either PC OR xbox and nowhere else.

don't get me started on games stuck on mobile devices only...

 

[AntiAktion]

Gaming industry is moving in a bad direction. Less worker rights, lots of gambling, microtransactions, subscriptions, and attention-capture.

Exclusivity and competition didn't really help game devs before, they had to work across studios and the rival platforms, Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft

And the more money these platform executives got, the worse the devs get paid and the worse their contracts and crunch.

 

[SpcDaicon]

I confess I'm quite divided on this topic.

I remember I've always complained about exclusivity since I could only afford one video game per generation, so choosing one meant giving up on other consoles for the longest time. Also, I think exclusivity contributed way too much to toxicity, justifying dumb things like console wars.

Yet, there is one thing to note. Nowadays gaming is much more "homogenious". I can hardly tell what is the real difference between an Xbox, PS5 and a PC and Nintendo seems to be heading in the same direction. They all have the same games and serve the same purpose. The console wars are over and we were left with just corporate interest that tries to squeeze every penny from the consumer.

 

[Graw]

Nah. Exclusivity has only ever been a business decision that brings no benefits for the end consumers.

 

[Anoobis]

Exclusivity isn't dead, but the benefits of the older form are gone. Modern exclusivity is going to look like the streaming wars, since it'll be based around launchers, and take the form of Epic Game Store's money hatting.

 

[_-_AceDragon_-_]

I think exclusivity was more of a by product of console wars, which was the real push for innovation. Sonic was the answer to Mario. (There was also Ristar vs Yoshi.) When it comes to first party flagship titles, then yes I totally agree that weaker competition isn't a good thing.

Most other third party developed games would probably have been made anyway though, and devs just pick the console which suits their projects the most.

Exclusivity is much less of a thing now and consoles are less distinct from one another than they used to be. But you could also say this levels the playing field and encourages devs to innovate even more to differentiate themselves.

Exclusivity can be a real pain like bloodborne being stuck on ps4.

 

[chibayoshi]

I agree competition is a must. AAA companies at this point have clearly demonstrated they care very little of innovation, or of their fan base, because they know for sure that even if they release slop or AI gen stuff (looking at you Black Ops 7) the game WILL sell, because there's this culture of fanatism and borderline obsesion with certain franchises that have a fanbase that will refuse to let it die (big ones at that)

I'D ARGUE THO, it will depend on the studios themselves to make that difference, new games coming like Silksong, can clearly upset or callout big companies to realize "we need to up our game(heh)" this is by far a long shot tho, I am aware, since its really asking too much for an AA studio, much less an indie dev to release games constantly unless they have a set team and even then it would not be a competition to AAA companies since they crap out 10 games per week.

At this point we can only give time to time itself. I'd go as far as to thing the game industry needs to crash for like a week or two to truly make them panic and get their sh*t together, again, wishful thinking on my part.

Buy indies and play retros, that's my way of going about it right now, and honestly I'm enjoying it

 

[shadowcat]

Gamers have been on the losing end for at least the past 15 years. Between that an nostalgia from us 30-40 year olds, I thought that was why retro gaming has picked up so much interest in the last few years.

 

[JellyjamLu]

I agree competition is a must. AAA companies at this point have clearly demonstrated they care very little of innovation, or of their fan base, because they know for sure that even if they release slop or AI gen stuff (looking at you Black Ops 7) the game WILL sell, because there's this culture of fanatism and borderline obsesion with certain franchises that have a fanbase that will refuse to let it die (big ones at that)

I'D ARGUE THO, it will depend on the studios themselves to make that difference, new games coming like Silksong, can clearly upset or callout big companies to realize "we need to up our game(heh)" this is by far a long shot tho, I am aware, since its really asking too much for an AA studio, much less an indie dev to release games constantly unless they have a set team and even then it would not be a competition to AAA companies since they crap out 10 games per week.

At this point we can only give time to time itself. I'd go as far as to thing the game industry needs to crash for like a week or two to truly make them panic and get their sh*t together, again, wishful thinking on my part.

Buy indies and play retros, that's my way of going about it right now, and honestly I'm enjoying it

Yep, that's how i view it mostly, Exclusivity may not benefit the consumer in the long run & having everything in one place is great, i get that, but as a practice to challenge each other from a developer/console perpective, Competition added intrigue, ideas. not saying it cannot exist now but it will hit hard i think.