Multiplatform vs Exclusive, what will sell more?

[Final-Fan]

kingofwale said:

BengaBanga said: Exclusives usually sell more than multiplatform games. (in regard to KHIII being Wii exclusive or Wii and PS2)

I happen to disagree wholeheartedly, in today's age, where all 3 console shares the market. Is it possible for an exclusive to sell better than if it's in more than 1 console?

Please reply with "yes" or "no" and then a short few lines explanation your answers. Thanks

Much of what I am about to say has been said above, but I want to distill it into one post:

Yes, it is completely possible.

If all else is equal -- if the finished game is otherwise identical -- then obviously it will do better as multiplatform.

But all is not equal; focusing on one console exclusively not only lets the developers focus their energy solely on making the game they want and not two or three of it, it also lets them take advantage of every hardware tweak they can lay hands on without worrying about being able to duplicate what they are doing in other hardware.

For example it is a well-known fact that the CPUs of the PS3 and 360 are radically different. I'm no programmer but it's obvious even to me that if someone uses every trick the Cell's 6 SPUs can be exploited to do it would be impossibly difficult to duplicate the results perfectly on the 360's Xenon. And, similarly, the Xenon's 3 fully-fledged cores are no doubt capable of feats that are a stone bitch to duplicate on the Cell with only one similar core, despite its 6 SPUs. And the rest of the hardware is different as well.

This is, of course, in addition to the simple fact that only one version of the game must be made, quality tested, etc.

These reasons ensure that exclusives do not sell better merely because the best developers are making exclusive games; there is going to be an inevitable impact on quality, even if the same people spend the same effort on the same game.

The main difference is going to be at the high end of the quality scale, where it's the small imperfections and lack thereof that separate the good games from the great games from the legendary ones.

In my opinion, that's why most of the "pretty good" to "great" games are multiplatform; the quality hit is small enough that the benefit of having a wider install base is greater. Then there's the low end of the spectrum, where "high-risk" experimental games and shovelware are exclusive because it's not even worth the extra effort to port them.

Of course I'm not an expert here so maybe there is not a trend where I think there is. And of course there are exceptions where the developer has decided to make the extra effort to craft the perfect multiplaform game.

And on the other hand, there are some types of games where after a certain standard of quality is met, further improvements pale in importance compared to sales base. Clearly these go multiplatform as a matter of course.