Keep hyping exclusives kids, they're anti consumer and bad all around for the industry but keep it up

Yeah I also heard about some of other "Amazing Exclusive Titles" such as The Order: 1886 and Ryse: Son of Rome and sure Bloodborne is far better @30fps

@the_master_race: well, failure happens, not all investiments payoff, just like with movies, but it doesn't make my argument less true, though, the best games this generation are exclusives (just like all generations before it). And BB is perfectly playable @30fps and without Sony investing on the game, it wouldn't happen.

Consoles are used to sell games. Games are the reason consoles exists. Money is made from the selling of games. More games are sold when they can be played on more systems. So, if the focus is to make money then availability matters. This is why the market is going to shift to service base because they can sell more games and wouldn't be hardware locked. The two top console manufacturers have already laid or laying the ground work for that.

@Pedro: exclusives will still exist, if not locked by hardware, they'll be locked by service.

behind every great game is a great talented team , what Sony and MS do is providing enough budget for these developers and nothing more

This is true and I am fine with that. My beef is hardware locked exclusive and I have been against this practice since the inception of the Xbox.

@the_master_race: so, if not for Sony or Nintendo, the games wouldn't exist.

I'm glad we agree.

If you remove exclusives out of the equation manufacturers are left to compete on 3 factors: price, performance, features. If they have to compete on those factors rather than restricting access by media availability, you'd end up with better hardware in the end.

Take the market like it is now. You want portability you get the Nintendo machine. You want 4k and you don't care about 4k movies, you get a PS4 pro. You want top performance you get a x1x. Don't want physical media, some manufacturer would be able to come out with a diskless machine. Which ever segment. The model right now makes the software subsidize the hardware...with the other the games have the largest possible pool of users to sell to, and greatest likelihood of selling enough copies to spawn further games without being held to a higher goal due to subsidizing hardware.

I don't have any interest in multiple systems this gen as I simply don't have time to game as much as I used to. There are games I'd like to purchase from all three systems, but as of now Nintendo and Sony have zero chance of selling me any software, with the other model they would. I have more than enough games to play regardless of whatever system I chose, exclusives are simply locking 2 of the 3 current vendors from being able to sell me software.

@Pedro: consoles are made to make money, period. You can say that selling more games like Spiderman on Xbox would make money but obviously it's more profitable to have double the install base, get exclusive content from developers because of your market lead, and forecast massive sales numbers as opposed to "number of bullets fired"

Like you said games make money, and when your exclusive games allow you to have double the install rate of your competition, those number are reflected in game sales selling on the companies own console.

Again, companies don't care if you don't like buying more than one console because you can't play the game you want. They also won't care when you have to subscribe to multiple services in the future because of exclusive content on each service. You can't escape it. Also, if selling your content to the competition was a profitable and smart as you make it seem to fit your rhetoric, then one would wonder why Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo haven't been doing it since the ps2 days...

That's not the crux of the argument. You're arguing why it won't happen, yet you've stated that it is NOT in the best interests of the consumer. That's all the original post was positing.

You are not making any sense with your first or second statement. It contradicts the entire notion of making money. The best selling games are multiplatform games. Why? Because the games are available across multiple platforms. Trying to argue anything to the contrary is nonsensical. It doesn't matter how many consoles are sold for whatever particular company it cannot exceed the market size of PC and all consoles combined. Any company will factually sell more across all platforms versus one.

There very nature of games as services counters your first sentence in your third paragraph.

"Also, if selling your content to the competition was a profitable and smart as you make it seem to fit your rhetoric, then one would wonder why Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo haven't been doing it since the ps2 days..."

Its rather simple. It is the norm and that norm is changing with all three to varying extents. Microsoft have not axed support for PS4 and Switch for Minecraft. They also have not axed support for the games made by the studios they purchase that are yet to be released. The future of gaming is going to hardware agnostic whether you want to accept it or not.

@Pedro: “The best selling games are multiplatform games.”

That’s great, but to video game developers and publishers, being a best-selling game is secondary to being a most-profitable game. If a console maker is willing to cut you a check (either in actuality or in the form of financial incentives) that more than makes up for the profits you would make being multiplat, you would be a fool not to take it.

There have been less third party exclusives this generation making that claim hold less value.

@Pedro: No, it just means that the targets of exclusivity have moved down the ladder, from AAA to AA and indies like “Hellblade,” “Cuphead” and “Blaster Master Zero.”

Everyone in this thread keeps arguing why it won't happen and how the current model benefits corporations without anyone being able to explain how its better for consumers to be how it currently is.

@Steppy_76: Being subsidized by a platform holder helps a studio fund the making new/interesting games.

A publisher can still subsidize a studio to make games in order to secure that studio signing with them over another publisher.

@Steppy_76:

"without anyone being able to explain how its better for consumers to be how it currently is."

Since games are currently exclusive to certain consoles, it encourages the developers to try harder on their games. Look at how great Nintendo has done with their exclusives as well as Sony. The reason why the games are as polished as they are is because of the competition.

Remember back when Sega used to try? Sonic Adventure and Shenmue. Now their games are reduced crap and uninspired. Ever since they went multiplatform, Sega has officially stopped caring about quality. Why would anyone want that to happen to Nintendo and Sony? So they can start making mundane crap too? Competition is good and we get more ambitious games as a result.

But exclusivity has been happening before the Xbox. Why did you wait until the Xbox to take a stance?

The flip side is if Turn 10 and Polyphony are both making their games and the games will be available on all systems the competition between them would force them to make their games the best they can be.

@Steppy_76: And the flip side to that: those games are loss leaders for their platform holders, who gladly accept those losses in exchange for the games motivating console purchases. Without third-party publishers partially funding development via licensing fees they pay to get their games on Xbox and PlayStation, budgets would get cut and worse games made.

Microsoft core success prior to Xbox was heavily driven by strong platform integration. If anyone was to start the trend of moving away from hardware locked games MS would be the entity to achieve this. But, they didn't. Instead they went along with the traditional hardware locking of games for about 15 years.

@zmanbarzel: the console itself is the loss leader not the software. The reason we are seeing fewer exclusives today is that it is too expensive to pay companies to not expose their games to a potential customer base of millions of gamers.

@Steppy_76: The console indeed is a loss leader. So are first-party games that don't have the broadest appeal. Just as Sony and Microsoft metaphorically lose $1 to later make $2 on the console, they lose $1 on Forza and GT to get people to buy their consoles where they'll make $2.

@Pedro: Your ignoring my points of install base and how exclusives sell systems and cherry picking sentences to fit your rhetoric.

Again, why would anyone buy a ps4 when Spiderman is on X1X or buy a weaker switch when Mario could run on a stronger laptop? And what makes you think that sony selling out if PS Pro bundles for those exclusives , plus adding more future third game purchases because they now sold that platform, plus the fact that the games sell extremely well on a single platform anyway without giving competition a cut is less than simply selling an exclusive they developed to a platform that needs it more. It's because it's more money in keeping it because you get more slice of the pie.

And again, even if services are the future, you will still have subscribe to multiple platforms just like multiple consoles, just like clients with PC now but I'm sure the crying for that can be saved for when it happens.

So your blame lies more with Xbox continuing the trend than Nintendo and Sega starting it?

Going by this logic, you could also say that games as a service are worse for the industry than exclusives. Exclusives this year gave gamers a superhero game everyone wanted in Spiderman, a game of the year in God of War, the most in-depth Smash game yet, and a mainstream console pokemon game.

Games as a service this year gave gamers state of decay 2 and sea of thieves.. the quality of these games speak for themselves. Just sayin.

No first party makes games to be a loss leader. They may accept likely lower overall sales because they are selling to a smaller gaming segment to widen the appeal of their box but they expect every game to contribute positively to the bottom line.

In a platform agnostic environment more of those games would be made, not less, because the accessible target gaming segment for any game would be much larger at the same production cost. Success is ultimately determined by the consumers in that segment buying your product. l'd rather have access to the US market than the Canadian.

In the case of game genres with a narrower appeal band this is especially true. This is exactly why there has been no Kameo 2, in spite of it being a very good first game. Viva Pinata 1/2 as well. Those games could have done much better had they been available to Nintendo's market, and to some degree Sony's.

The same is true of any niche product where there are no other natural barriers to adoption other than market access. That is all consoles are: a vehicle to obtain market access for s/w and increasingly ecosystem services. The hardware is simply designed to get and keep that access to you....effectively locking you in. It is inherently anti-consumer.

Why wouldn't those games be made in a games market with unrestricted hardware access? You seem to be implying that the games that happened to be exclusive would just disappear. Did Mass Effect disappear when it went multiplat? Why would Naughty Dog disappear or its games become crap if it was 3rd party? Or Santa Monica?

Different businesses, different rules. Sorry

Gaming and TV are unrelated, theres no need to justify how one works one way and other another way. It is how it is. The only truth that matters is: exclusives do push console sales, even if a small piece of the overall market they still drive hype and sales. The publishers need those exclusives to push hardware sales so they fund them. They have the right to keep them exclusive to their own platform. Simple

Some exclusives probably would never see the light of day if these console manufacturers werent willing to fund them. Look at Bayonetta 2. As much as it pains me seeing it exclusive to Nintendo, if the alternative was for it to never exist then I'm glad Nintendo funded it

And? Your point? A budget that some of these devs would never get, especially in a market obssessed with "games as service". Please tell me how many AAA publishers would be willing to fund a strictly SP game like GoW at this day and age?

Sony, MS and Nintendo buying studios is no different then Disney buying everything. They saw potential, they bought it. There's no less merit in that.

@SUD123456: Because those said games where made exclusively to push console sales because of competition. Imagine if Sony and Nintendo didn't need to sell consoles and had no competition, you wouldn't have great and new game experiences, you would have more online focused games like SOT and SOD 2. I'm not saying the existing games would disappear, but the drive to develop new AAA games like that sure would.

WTF are you talking about? The blame lies with all of them.

I have addressed your points and this response addresses nothing.

Bolded. Of course they're all to blame, but I just found interesting that you decided to take a stance when a company fulfilled the status quo instead of taking a stance when companies were actively creating the problem in the first place. If the blame lies with all of them, why then were you not against exclusivity as much when it was just Nintendo and Sega?

@Pedro: You haven't addressed any points at all. Exclusives making install bases bigger thus increasing sales for all games sold on a platform? -

Nope

Games as a service still forcing you to subscribe to multiple subs because exclusives will still exsist? - no intel

Why in the hell Sony and Nintendo would sell games they paid to develop to competition that needs it to help them when more money can be made by selling out of bundles and still selling millions of copy without needing to give the competition a slice? - never rebutted that either jimbo.

But by all means Pedro, keep typing why you know what's more profitable for multi-national corporations than they do.. ( even if they are currently leaders in the market.. )

*game set and match*

I explained that unlike the other manufacturers, there wasn't an avenue to make such a thing happen. The Xbox was using non exotic PC components for a console, which is something that hasn't been done prior. That move would have allowed it to achieve the goal of making PC and console gaming a unified platform. Nintendo and Sega when they were competitors were not creating hardware that would have facilitate such a move mainly because such an idea was not even in the scope of either companies.

Multi-platform games sell more than exclusives per platform with the only exception being Nintendo. Why are you running from this fact. For the past 5 years on both PS4 and Xbox One the best selling games were and continue to be multi-platform games. Prior to God of War and Spiderman there were no hard correlation between sales and exclusives for the PS4. Couple this with the fact that most gamers purchase and play more multiplatform games than exclusives which is something you are ignoring.

Your second statement has already been addressed.

The third has already been addressed and it a rather simple thing, its just a common practice in the industry for the past ~30 years. But its not sustainable in the long run as demonstrated with PSNow, XCloud and Nintendo making games for non-Nintendo platforms.

Fortunately the big three have more insight than yourself, otherwise they would become the next Blockbuster/Sears relying your logic. :)

Spinning things will not change the fact that you did not complain about exclusives until MS loss them this gen.

The way i see it you people have no backbone,the xbox loss its exclusives PC didn't is a 1 way deal.

@Pedro: Still doging that 2 to 1 install base helped by exclusive sales I see... Also still ignoring the fact that games as a service will still have exclusives, also still dodging the profits made from exclusives selling consoles with online services like PSN every month and more games sold on said platform.

You can keep ignoring that and stating one off sales of exclusive on competitive platforms outweighs profits of outselling your competition 2 to 1, or just admit that you want a game on a platform you don't own and this entire exclusive argument never saw the light of day until now when so many people are enjoying titles unavailable on other consoles.

Exclusives is what keeps consoles evolving, and games too, as each console manufaturer tries to outdo the others in graphics, gameplay and general awesomeness.

Take Horizon 4, for example. I really hope it inspires Sony to make a good racing game for PS4 too, as PS4 is sorely lacking in good racers.

If the game would not have been made without it, is it still a bad thing?

lol just look at these idiotic non-gaming toxic MS shill promoting the destruction of the console industry in order to help MS succeed.

What a bunch of shitty fake gaming corporate shills.

If you hate exclusives so much then go to PC and remove yourself entirely from being involved in the console discussion.

If you're already a PC fan...then enjoy the millions of shitty low quality games that, wait for it, HAVING NO COMPETITION from an open free market with no incentive has provided you.

See how that worked out?

This is why MS and toxic xbox fans are both a cancer to gaming. Look at the shit these industry destroying morons want to promote.

• Single player games should die, only online monetized games as services matter, Phil said so!

• Generations should die, it helps MS win producing generic hardware upgrades with no games ever 2 years, Phil said so!

• Only multiplats matter, because we don't have any quality exclusives so they don't count.

• Now, Exclusives should die, MS can't complete with Sony and Nintendo producing quality games so no one should have them, having low quality generic exclusives like PC for everyone will make me happier.

Burn them all with fire.

Consoles require forcing games into a hostage situation to bait system sales just to stay relevant

Also what would all the console only losers use to justify the sunk cost?

Exclusivity isn't required for games to be made, being available on all systems generates more money. Only buyouts and bribes keep games on one system these days (except PC, because the consoles are too shit to run certain genres)

Agreed. Exclusives are very anti-consumer and only target one part of the whole gaming fanbase. They always say they want as many people to buy and play their games but thats false. How is that possible when a really really large amount of fans cant play because they dont have a specific console. Its shitty.

The people here talking badly about exclusives are really out of touch with reality.

It's like Netflix, Crunchyroll, Amazon prime video or anything like it don't have exclusive content.

People fail to see that, even if exclusives tied by hardware cease to exist, they'll exist tied by services.

The real communist world in which platform unity exists that you people want will NEVER happen, not until money stops being the driving force behind this business.

The only ones who pretend exclusives don't matter now are lemmings,after 2 generations of Forza and Halo pimping now all of the sudden exclusives don't matter.

Pathetic.

You sound like an imbecile.

(all of you who support this argument do)

Silly Xbox and PC fanboys, if no competition and open free market is the way to go then why does PC have the most shovleware filled library of all systems? (save the xbox since all it's games go to PC anyway)

The current PC environment (forgettable shovelware) IS the reality of no more exclusives. The PC is an open platform so there's no need to wonder about what that type of environment would bring to the rest of the industry.

You're all up in arms about CONSOLES exclusives like an idiot thinking the same games would exist on PC if console manufactures didn't create them to beat out another console competitor system?

How dumb can you be?

The exclusives that you're all teary eyes about were created for the purpose of SELLING SYSTEMS, if not for that purpose they wouldn't even be the same games.

This is the difference between making games to sell...

Vs making games to sell systems...

Most of these games wouldn't be around without exclusive competition.

For example the Forza franchise wouldn't even exist if it was for GT, Sonic wouldn't exist without Mario, Tekken wouldn't exist without Virtua Figher...and there would be no Dark Souls if Sony had never funded the original Demon's Souls

You're so clueless!

Without exclusive console competition you can forget about those console games you're whining about not being on PC because they wouldn't even exist.

Well said, I agree. Exclusives are a blessing to the game industry.

These companies pour all their resources into their exclusives so that they can sell hardware. The result is breathtaking GOTY caliber games like GOW, Zelda, BOYW, TLOU, Mario Odyssey, Bloodborne, etc. Only butthurt fanboys without exclusives on their systems would want exclusives to die out so that we can all dwell in mediocre low budget multiplats and rehashed AAA multiplats from EA and Ubisoft.

The funny thing is, Forza, MS's best and ONLY remaining AAA franchise as well as original IP wouldn't exist if not for competing with Sony's exclusive GT franchise.

So true. Watch as they flip flop next gen when these studios MS bought start making exclusives. Even if the exclusives are mediocre they will claim that exclusives are the best thing ever lol.