Why Console Exclusivity is good! Agree or Disagree?!

[binary solo]

This guy (and some of you) must absolutely HATE the Cry Engine 3, and be wishing for it to fail miserably, because it's a multiplat developer's dream come true. It allows the developer to make games for 2 consoles for the price of 1. Anyone making a console exclusive game using Cry Engine 3 is simply limiting their profits; or being moneyhatted to all get out.

I want to criticise the poll questions a bit too. They lack subtlety and are too black and white. I can't answer because my opinion is a qualified yes. But by answering yes it suggests I support the views expressed in the article, which I don't.

People blather on about a multitude of multiplats. What crap! There are tons of exclusives for each console, and they showcase the best the respective consoles have to offer technologically. If this is a call for more console exclusivity then I don't agree. There is more than enough exclusivity out there to differentiate the consoles. My game library is 90% exclusive titles, don't tell me exclusivity is in jeopardy.

There is a form of exclusivity I don't particularly like: timed exclusives. Make it exclusive, or make it multiplat don't be half arsed about it. More often than not the game performs poorly on the 2nd/3rd console anyway. About the only exceptions are timed exclusives on 360 in Japan going to PS3.

Console exclusivity should derive almost exclusively from 1st and 2nd party studios. Technological limitations of what a 3rd party wants to do / is capable of (e.g. make a motion control game, only have staff cabable of writing software for a single system) is about the only good business reason for a 3rd party to make an exclusive game. Well that and market research to suggest that game X wouldn't achieve profitable sales on console Y.

The 3rd party developer sector needs mutliplats more than it needs exclusives. It's only the worst kind of console fanatic that doesn't buy a game because it's also available on the other console, thankfully those types are in the minority. From an efficiency perspective it's more efficient to make one multiplat game than to make 3 exclusive games (one for each console), unless the 2 exclusives are so much alike that they might as well be one multiplat.

I also think the article in the OP is simplistic and in some respects rather ignorant (especially of history and what truly drives creativity) but that would require a whole lot more to explain, which I can't be arsed with.

I say the balance is almost right. Though I think there will be fewer console exclusives coming out of 3rd parties than there have been recently, and that's a good thing IMO.

I'd rather buy 5 games than a 2nd console.