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pokoko on 25 January 2014
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the_dengle said:
pokoko said:

Dead Space: Extraction is the first thing that came to my mind, a game that many Wii owners were angry about because it wasn't what the other consoles received.

Exclusives should be exclusive IPs, not exclusives based off universal franchises.  Otherwise, someone ends up feeling like they got the short end of the stick and they start complaining on the internet.  Petitons get signed!

That being said, I think that applies more to home consoles than to handhelds.  The 3DS and Vita hardware are just too far apart to try to match, plus the market is split into halves rather than thirds.

As far as the Vita Assassin's Creed, Ubisoft said it did quite well and that they were happy with it.

Wait, what? You had me through most of this, but you lost me at the bolded part. Multiplatform titles between both 3DS and Vita aren't exactly plentiful, but they aren't unheard of, either. Usually, the only notable difference between the two versions of such a multiplat is the higher resolution on Vita vs the 3D on 3DS; there's no significant performance gap in such titles.

Of course, a major production taking full advantage of the Vita's power would have trouble running on the 3DS, but few companies seem willing to invest in such an effort on handhelds these days. Most Vita games would have few problems running on 3DS, and I doubt most 3DS devs would have too much trouble up-porting their games to Vita -- especially since both platforms are becoming particularly popular among indie developers, who rarely push consoles to their absolute limits. I think a bit more cross-development between the two handhelds could be beneficial to both.

I'm not trying to insult the 3DS or even saying that there shouldn't be multi-platform titles between them.  However, with regards to big franchises, I think developers could make a better game for each by focusing on the strengths of each.  There are games that run on the Vita that I don't believe could run on the 3DS, especially considering the twin sticks.  That's not flaming, that's just being realistic.  What if Ubisoft decided to put Liberation on both?  It would probably be a much different game.  

I'm not saying it as something that should always be the case, just something that I understand when it happens.  I actually agree with you about many games and certainly about smaller games.  However, if developers are planning a game and they have to decide between making it Vita only or cutting content and changing the control scheme to make it for the 3DS as well, as a Vita owner I want the best game possible.  At that point, making two different games makes sense.