Does Moneyhatting Really Work?

[binary solo]

Right now I'm too lazy to do any analysis. But just looking at console sales history I question whether Moneyhatting works for the plaftorm maker either financially or in terms of overall hardware sales.

yes there's always an exception to the rule, and I think PS1 is that sole exception.

Lets look at the modern console era starting with NES. I am wholly ignorant of console wars prior to NES, but it appears that NES saw the resurrection of game consoles. So at least from the perspective of gaming consoles Ninetndo didn;t have any competition to money hat games away from. Perhaps thay took some games away from PCs, but by the look of Nintendo's sales charts thay have pretty much always relied on their first party library.

The first real competition in the modern console era is Sega vs Nintendo. Did Sega moneyhat? I'm guessing yes. Did it do Sega any favours? Arguable really. How much more did Sega sell in terms of hardware and non-moneyhatted software as a result of moneyhatting? Sega was probably going to sell a reasonable number of consoles regardless of moneyhatting. And the longterm benefit obviously ended up being nil for Sega.

Then came PS1. The moneyhatting was strong with this one, and as a conglomerate with a reputation in various areas of consumer electronics and the capacity to subsidise the console division through profits in other divisions the moneyhatting was, according to many, rampant. Was the moneyhatting actually the reason for PS1's amazing success? And was it a good investment? Yes, to some extent it probably was, but there were a lot of other factors in PS1 dominance than just moneyhatting.

What was the moneyhatting situation in gen 6? Sony probably didn't need to moneyhat because as the biggest game in town they didn't need to. Sega was in the financial pooh and couldn't moneyhat to save itself (and didn't save itself). Nintendo, whatever moneyhatting it did helped it to being the worst selling non-Sega console of the modern era. MS, the new kid on the block moneyhatted the hell out of the Xbox, but to what effect? It sold 3 million more units than the dismal Gamecube, but sold 5 million fewer units, in a much expanded console market, than Segta's first foray into consoles. Did moneyhatting really gain Xbox much in console sales? I dunno. I think Halo, PGR and Fable did Xbox more favours than the moneyhatting of 3rd party IP. Perhaps you can claim moneyhatting took Xbox from a likely mid-teen million selling console to mid 20's. But a pretty minor benfit, and financially speaking Xb was a lage money pit. Unlike PS1, which while moneyhatted to all get out sold so many consoles and so much software that it was very profitable for Sony.

So we now gen 7. Sony can't afford to Moneyhat, and they just assumed if they built it people would come. They were wrong and Sony won't be moneyhatting much, if at all for some time yet. And perhaps they will see that moneyhatting doesn't really buy you happiness. Did MS moneyhatting in the 7th gen achieve much? I would argue that the success of Xbox 360 comes down to factors other than moneyhatting, and mostly, if not primarily Sony fucking up badly. And in the latter part of the generation is was, ironically, Kinect that kept Xbox360 going. Ironic because we all know what Kinect has done for Xb one.

Now we are in Gen 8 and the big moneyhat news is Bayo2 and Tomb Raider. The moral rights and wrongs of these moneyhattings aside will they do Wii U and Xb one any favours? I think aside from the die hard Wii U fans most people think Bayo 2 isn;t going to do much for Wii U. And I think the over all outcome for MS moneyhatting exclusivity for Tomb Raider (if indeed it is a permanent exclusive) will be financially negative, and have almost no effect on lifetime hardware sales.

So the question is why do they do it? Do they look at how Sony appeard to moneyhat its way to the top and think "if we do the same then we'll get the same outcome"? Has anyone done any real analysis on the cost/benefit of moneyhatting? To have any real benefit does it need to be taken to the extreme, but if done piecemeal it will end up costing more than it's worth? Is it just "I moneyhat because I can, and it pisses off the competition"?

And is it good for the 3rd parties? What's the success/failure history of moneyhatted IP? I think it's a bit of a mixed bag. Final Fantasy did pretty well being moneyhatted from Nintenbdo to PS. Oddworld seems to have done not so well being moneyhatted from PS to Xbox.