Conina said:
How exactly get the games better by arbitrary exclusivity?
Nostalgic distortion field? Of course people complained back then when 3rd party games went exclusive for... reasons. The only difference was that not so many console owners had access to the internet.
Do you really think that games like GTA (IV, V, VI), Call of Duty, Diablo 3, Assassin's Creed, The Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect and many more would have sold more with going/staying exclusive on only one platform? Unless 3rd party developers/publishers get payed for (timed) exclusivity, they choose multiplatform... I wonder, why? |
#1 By "product", I meant the console. It makes the Playstation better for Sony, it makes the Xbox better for Microsoft, and it makes the whatever name it'll be, better for Nintendo. Exclusivity doesn't inherently make a particular game better, but it makes a particular console better that its competition in certain areas
#2 I didn't grow up rich, by any means, but I was always a dual console owner, until this gen (and we're only 2 years in. Plenty of time to get something else). I had a Genesis and SNES, PS1 and N64, PS2 and Dreamcast, and PS3 and XB360. Because, before the advent of "gaming journalism", when I wanted to play a game, it meant getting the system the game was on. Not "wah wah wah, why isn't it on the one console I bought/was bought for me first? I bought this console, so all games should be on my choice of system, business be damned". I didn't bitch that WrestleMania 2000 wasn't on PS1. I saw the game, saw how amazing it was, then asked for it for Christmas with an N64. Now, you could probably retort with "well, not all people have money like you," (lol I grew up lower middle class) "many can only afford one console". You mean to tell me that at in a given year, they can drop $300-400 on a console, and then they're "too poor" to ever ever spend that kinda money again (actually, less. Since consoles drop in price)? I don't wanna sound like I'm "poor shaming", but if you can make ends meet enough that you can buy a console, then it's possible to get another. As in, if you can afford a console at any time, you can afford one, period. Otherwise, the first console purchase wouldn't be possible.
#3 I didn't say anything about how much any game would sell. This is about exclusivity to a console to make that console more attractive to the consumer. You know how many new customers AT&T got when iPhone was exclusive? Sure, iPhone sells a ton more now that it's on Verizon, Sprint, etc. But for AT&T? They literally got millions more customers due to its exclusivity. With that said, it terms of gaming, I've pointing out, multiple times over the years, that going multiplatform doesn't "expand the userbase"; it "splits the userbase". Outside of the outlier GTA5, look at the game franchises that were exclusive to PS2, then became multiplatform in Gen 7. The games that stayed exclusive sold roughly the same as the prior iteration. The games that went multiplatform.....sold about the same as their exclusive counterpart. Also, despite the PS3 selling half the PS2, many of its first part y games sold roughly the same as their PS2 versions (GT5, Ratchet & Clank, God of War, etc), meanwhile the 360 sold over 3x more than the OG Xbox aaaaaaaaand.......its first party games sold nearly the same, outside Halo. Long story short, most games have their fanbase, and the people who want them, get them. They don't just say "not on the system I bought? Guess I won't play". No, they get the game, and the data proves that. Nor does "more exposure" (via bigger userbase) guarantee that more people will eventually buy the game. Otherwise, using the userbase argument that people love to use when arguing against exclusivity, God of War 3 should have sold about 2 million (PS3 = 1/2 PS2 userbase), and Halo 3 should have sold over 25 million (XB360 = over 3x OGXB).
