This Generation is all about Exclusivity vs. Ownership.

[Icy-Zone]

SvennoJ said:

Why would publishers fear second hand sales more then being able to play 2 instances of the same disc simultaneously, and in total 11 people (in different time zones) having access to those games, including DLC as well?

It's Ownership vs Digital license benefits.

Both sides will have exclusives but why would 3rd parties restrict themselves to one console, especially now the systems are so close in hardware setup? Most people don't own all consoles, by excluding one console you automatically lose far more sales.

Look at the PS2/Xbox/GC gen. PS2 received an abundance of third party exclusives despite the fact devs did not have to worry about trimming down the graphics for potential ports to other consoles, since the PS2 was the weakest of the three.

I'm assuming devs would look at 2 things when considering a port.

1) The ease of porting a game to a secondary/tertiary console(s). This doesn't only mean the game itself, but also the policies of the console manufacturer.

2) The install base of said consoles to see if porting would be profitable.

Right now number 2 is not looking so hot for the X1, and number 1 is up to debate. MS has a weaker console with very limited memory. Since the PS4 has 7Gb of GDDR ram, devs might want to cut development costs and release games that require less optimization solely for the PS4.