amirnetz said:
Excellent question and a good source of confusion. The question is not really which platform has more exclusives, but which platform is denied titles. Another way to rephrase it is: "Our goal is not to determine a winner, but to identify a loser". An exclusivity for one of the HD consoles means that the other one does not get the title. If this denial happens often enough to the same platform it will start to become apparent in the marketplace that "that platform doesn't get many of the titles that are out there". When such a perception is propagated in the market, then "that platform with the fewer titles" becomes a risky purchase to new buyers because the buyers will lack the confidence that all of the future titles will be available on the console. This lack of confidence will cause changes in buying decisions and the platform with the fewer titles will lose share. This lose of share in turn will accelerate the 3rd parties decision to drop support for the platform. And this vicious cycle is called "the death spiral". |
Interesting. So, are you trying to determine where the non-availability/non-viability crossover point on the graph would be, or do you already have a "ratio" in mind (total body of 3rd party games vs exclusive 3rd party games) and you are trying to see how close the current platforms are to that target ratio?
In other words, do you have a formula that states something like "when the competition reaches a point where its 3rd party exclusives divided by the total body of 3rd party games exceeds ratio X, then the death spiral begins"?
Perhaps there would have to be some sort of ramp up period where the total body of 3rd party games has to exceed a certain threshold to be meaningful. For example, if you have consoles X and Y just entering the market (< 12 months), and the total number of 3rd party games = 50, with console X having 10 exclusives and console Y having 3 exclusives, then it would "appear" that console Y is in trouble because console X's ratio is very good (10/50 or 20% of 3rd party games denied to console Y). But that would be deceiving because both consoles are in "ramp up" mode, and consumers and devs are just beginning to explore the options.
But take two consoles X and Y each being in the market > 2 years, with the total number of 3rd party games = 500, with console X having 10 exclusives and console Y having 3 exclusives, and it would appear that console Y is not in trouble, because console X has a ratio of 10/500, or 2% 3rd party games denied to console Y.
So, I would think that finding the ratio of 3rd party exclusives to all 3rd party games after the ramp up period would be important.
Just my 2 cents.
EDIT: I forgot to mention an important factor: title rank/appeal. If title COD 6 was denied to console Y, then the impact would be very significant. If title Billy Bob's Bass Fishing Adventures was denied to console Y, then the impact would be much less (at least I would hope so).
