True or False: only first party games should be exclusive

Are you against free market or what? A company or developer should be able to choose if it wants to make a game exclusive or not, based on business decisions. A game like Persona 5 or Ys VIII becoming multiplatform, for example, would be a waste of money for their companies since there's next to 0 demand for these type of games on the X1.

It's X1 that has to make itself attractive for these games.

That's where I stand, companies should put their games where they want to put them.

Exclusives aren’t “anti-consumer.” Get that commie shit outta here

Legally? Owners of IP are free to do whatever they want with their property.

Philosophically? It’d be nice to not have to buy multiple hardware units just for software. But baby steps: having cross-platform progression would be a nice start.

Should businesses exist without unnecessary restrictions?

Exclusives are annoying and the world would be a better place without that particular tactic.

However, the world is built by companies trying to part consumers from their sweet, sweet cash - usually by damn near any means necessary.... I'm okay with that. I certainly would want to take advantage of anything that would make me more profit, given the opportunity.

Trouble is: I don't see how exclusivity is profitable. If you've made a good game you'll always make more money by going multi-platform. Exclusivity just means the game won't ever reach its true potential. It'll just die with that platform until a remaster, usually a poor one that may or may not fix whatever was lacking. Whereas on more open platforms... well, anything can happen.

They can do whatever the hell they want with it though, it's their IP.

@pyro1245: Being exclusive usually comes with financial and development perks. Naughty Dog can get special access and help from PlayStation any time they need it during development. Also, Naughty Dog doesn’t have to pay for marketing or have a separate team for developing on other hardware. Making a 3rd party multiplat is risky because your team is spread thin, the budgets are higher, somebody has to pay for marketing, and there usually isn’t much “up front” money, meaning they are operating in the red through release.

Lets not forget the games that wouldn’t have been made if it weren’t for a console maker stepping up and funding it while obtaining exclusive rights. Exclusives can be a win for console makers, developers and gamers all at the same time.

This, I can see why exclusives are good and needed but It would be nice if they didn't have them.

This.

We had way too many studios shut down this and last gen. If this is the only option that doesn't happen, i'm fine with it.

2nd party exclusives are fine, and so are 3rd party exclusives when no other publisher is willing to pony up the $$$ (i.e. Bayonetta). If a Nintendo or Sony is willing to publish a sequel or new IP, then of course it's reasonable for them to own the exclusivity so long as they retain the publishing rights.

Situations like Tomb Raider from a few years ago are incredibly lame though. Taking a long standing multi-plat, and making it a "timed exclusive". That's just dumb, and proved to be bad business as well. I don't think anybody won out of that one.

I don't think this is a statement that one an make a general blanket statement on. Case by case basis though, really depends. For instance, we see a lot of third party exclusive games on Japanese market either go one way toward Nintendo or Sony, and I don't think either pay third parties to make these games but the franchises develop followings on certain systems, so they try not to shake it up. Considering part of the Japanese model of development and publishing isn't exactly like what we see in the west with third party AAA multiplatform games, Japanese don't always shoot for high budget games that require high degrees of success to break even. Because of this, they have freedom to try new things sometimes. When companies make things like games ported to every system, that takes more money not just to develop but also pay advance royalties on, and because of that they need to sell more, then they need to advertise more, they need to design the game for broader mass appeal (and some people despise when games are too familiar and formulaic because they pander to the masses). This make it or break it mentality has ruined many well celebrated western studios over the last couple decades, especially last gen. There is some sustainability in their approach. Not going too port heavy is a way to save money and not try to over-expand beyond the means of making necessary returns.

That being said, there are certain developers within the means to expand and benefit from it. Atlus I felt had something great going with the Persona series since Persona 3 & 4, something I felt they never reached its full potential being limited to PS2 systems back when focus on PS3 was underway when the games localized outside the Japanese market. If they felt staying Sony exclusive, at very least, they should have ported it to PS3. But, I felt the series would have been great to expose the SMT and subseries to a wider audience, something they've struggled with over years. Naturally, with the popularity of the Wii, that would have been a natural next port consideration outside a Sony system. Now we see more Japanese devs making console exclusives with PC ports, which is smart because being on PC digitally allows for expanded potential buyers without the costs of advanced royalties required for physically printed games on consoles.

Sometimes being an exclusive is advantageous for developers, even if they get nothing in return for it from the console they choose. I mean, if a developer just makes a multiplatform game nobody really gives it any special consideration as it's just another multiplatform game. They'll celebrate it if it's great by itself, maybe. But, exclusives, that gets the fanboys excited, it can even benefit from biases toward that system. Being able to call itself an exclusive for whatever console is going to have its dedicated fanboys more eager to see if it's worth a damn.

Even these days with smaller developers out there, there are some games that start off exclusive as releases stagger their ways onto other systems, I see nothing wrong with this approach. Like any game, there's always a risk of nobody giving a damn. Best to test the waters on one system then once recognition for the game is given, move it onto other systems with some of the returns from before, and established recognition for the game's success.

And, really, sometimes Sony, MS, Microsoft, they want to expand their own exclusives but don't have the studios to make them, they don't want to buy the studios or their IPs either, best thing to do is pay third parties to make them. They've all done this, they still do this, I don't expect that to stop. Sony doesn't own Insomniac but they've made them great exclusives. Nintendo has Platinum making exclusives for them. Microsoft, well, they get so much shit for doing it but yeah, that's mainly how they get many of their exclusives.

The X1 isn't the only platform though, people on PC have been begging for the Persona games and Ys is also successful enough, not to mention that there's also the Switch which would be a good fit for those games.

But yeah, I don't see much reason to bring them over to the Xbox since I doubt those games would find success there.

Games compete with games. The notion that exclusives somehow increases competition is simply false. Whether a game is multiplatform or exclusive it still has to compete with all other games available. Because, games compete with games.

The best selling game is multiplatform and the highest grossing game is multiplatform. With multiplatform games gamers win all the time.

Its without a doubt that the demand for such games are smaller on the Xbox One but if Final Fantasy XV is any indicator or Monster Hunter World its no way close to being considered next or remotely close and or neighbors to 0 demand. Its a simply logic, the more games of type A available to any system the more people of that game type would be attracted to it.

THANK YOU! No one starts this console communism shit until their system starts getting owned to hell.

Wah wah! Exclusives are bad, all consoles should have crossplay, everyone should win! OMG shut up already! There's only one camp doing that this gen too, because they can't face the reality that they're stuck with a loser.

Who the **** has the moral authority to tell a business it should invest money in making games run on every plastic box because reasons?

How high on bullshit do you have to be to think that way? It's mystifying.

LOL. So buying multiple systems with near identical hardware whilst owning hardware that can play the same game is pro consumer. Gotcha.

I don’t really mind exclusives myself. First party exclusives make sense for obvious reasons. It’s also really good when some games wouldn’t have been made otherwise, Bayonetta 2 and 3 come to mind. Some exclusives though really leave me scratching my head and wondering at how much money was offered and how beneficial it actually was to make an exclusivity deal such as with Street Fighter V. Even timed exclusives don’t really bother me that much. What I do think is really lousy though are these exclusivity deals for game content. Making players wait to get dlc for your game just because they are on another systems seems like a lame thing to do.

What does what you buy have to do with a company being pro/anti consumer? Your statement is mixing consumer with console maker.

Competition is pro consumer. Without exclusives, there would be only one console maker with little or no incentive to innovate. What would PSN look like without Xbox Live pushing it forward? How would you like to still be using Kinect and hearing about playing TV through an Xbox? Nintendo has done some wild things, some successful and some not, but they continue to find their way into consumers hands. If the big 3 weren't fighting for your attention through exclusive software, we would have none of the positives we have today. (and all of the negatives would likely still be there)

It looks to me like some of you consumers are "anti consumer" without even knowing it...

@pyro1245: It is profitable when a company does not have to port your game to a console on which the game will not sell, that's the reason Japanese games aren't on the x1.

@Pedro: only if it really matters to you, for most people, the x1 doesn't have anything worth playing, hence why we won't waste money buying, we're fine with the PS4 only

@Pedro: final Fantasy and monster Hunter are backed up by multi-million companies, whilst falcon and atlus don't swin on money, and both ffxv and monster Hunter sold like shit on the x1, all more reason Japanese shouldn't waste money on the platform.

If anything, Microsoft has to start making it attractive to Japanese developers.

It's Microsoft's fault they can't cater to the Japanese audience and to people that like Japanese games, not the developers.

Yes & no.

They can definitely do better, but being a non-Japanese company, local devs will always favour the local console manufacturers (ie. Sony & Nintendo). And Japanese gamers will always favour local console manufacturers. So there is only so much MS can do. Of course they could throw heaps of $$ at the problem, but I honestly still don't think that would make Xbox much more popular in Japan.

But yes, they can definitely do more to encourage Japanese devs to release the more popular games on Xbox in the West. Like Nier, etc.

If you want to play everything in one place, you may as well get a PC to game on. For consoles? Too bad so sad. The platform makers need to build on their strengths and stand out by exclusive software. We get better games with competition. It's hilarious to hear Xbox guys saying this now after bragging about how Sony was gonna go broke and they'd never have any games. Now you hear them begging for a piece of the Sony action so bad but stopping short of actually buying the console.

Time to swallow your pride and admit things aren't going to get much better until next gen. Especially since you guys spent all that time damage controlling MS and going after Sony. There's only one console on the market that's killing it, and Xbox gamers only hurt themselves by shunning it because they still buy into the MS smoke and mirrors.

I agree with everything except this. Developers should have a game in mind and put it on the console based on the audience they want for that game. If that game isn't for that audience, then they shouldn't waste their time. Now if Microsoft wants to expand their console to their audience, then they need to make exclusives to bring in that audience and market their console to that audience.

False. It's the developers'/publishers' perogative to decide which platform to release their games on.

Ys VIII is on PC and Switch so I guess it was not a waste of money for them to be multiplatform. Persona 5 would also do well on Switch/PC if they did it. (I own it on Ps4 btw)