| Azzanation said: Now before you jump on the hate train by only ready the headline. Hear me out. Let's talk hypothetical here. What would the industry be like if all 3rd party games released on all platforms, with the only exception of exclusives are 1st party games. 1) Developers have a larger market to sell their games on, increasing popularity and profits. Keeping the lights on. 2) It pushes Console manufacturers to focus on creating even better hardware to outdo the competition. Much like DvD player brands. You buy what's the best value for your dollar. Not what movie can play on one and not the other. Example: A console manufacture can make a poor console, money hat IPs and funnel customers into buying the console that the customer has no interest in buying however has no choice because the games they like have been paid to be exclusive. 3) It allows console manufacturers to invest even more into 1st party games, creating killer apps to sell with the hardware. This increases investments on the 1st party software front, hardware front and might even push companies to open up more studios to increase their portfolio. For companies to have the option to money hat games, it is nothing more than a short cut. It's basically paying to handicap your competition. It would be more interesting to see how all these companies fair if 3rd party games weren't able to be paid exclusives. It will focus more on 1st party content and who offers the better deals with Hardware. Nintendo is in a very unique spot. They found out they couldn't compete on the 3rd party front like Xbox and PS can, so what Nintendo did was focus on building great 1st party games and unique system designs that tend to make 3rd party games exclusives by default due to controller features, like the Wii. Nintendo have found a structure where they don't have to rely on moneyhatting developers to make 3rd party exclusives because Nintendo has an unrivaled 1st party lineup that even if you took all the 3rd party games away from the Switch, Nintendo games alone will sell the systems as we saw with Zelda BOTW literally selling more game copies than hardware devices. If this hypothetical became a reality than we would also need to put in place rules for purchasing studios. Otherwise, MS will just buy all the 3rd party companies and eat the competition. If you really think about it all, we all win. Software developers win, as they can sell more games to more people, customers win because we will be offered better hardware options and 1st party games, and console manufacturers can drive each other and the industry into the right direction much like AMD vs Nvidia. Drive the hardware innovation and we might be able to expand this console market. |
I disagree, strongly. I think developers should make the games that best suit the audiences of the platforms rather than homogenized approaches. Some games will be suitable for multiplatform, but exclusivity fosters healthy competition because of the diversification, a lack of exclusivity fosters homogenization.
1. Developers have a larger market, but also far less chance to shine. Plus they will have to conform to the general hardware standards.
2. It pushes the hardware manufacturers toward homogenization (or Playstation + imitation brands), which, as we've seen with the failure of the Xbox platform, isn't healthy for the industry. Nintendo attempted to imitate the playstation during the GameCube era as well, and it flopped. It's a failing strategy.
3. First party development studios already make great first party games and are always looking at how to make better games with new technology and interface options.
On the business front: Nintendo's extreme success over Microsoft in the console front basically shows that diversification is healthier for the industry, not homogenization. Of the three companies, Microsoft is the most unique: both Nintendo and Sony set their own hardware trends, Microsoft clones Sony's hardware. Any and Nintendo are successful. Microsoft, even with all their corporate predation, has proven to be as unsuccessful as you'd expect an imitation brand to be. Third party games don't dominate on Nintendo platforms, but the budgets are also a lot lower, and there are still third party exclusives that sell in the millions - Pokemon sells in the tens of millions.
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
