It seems to me that historically we have a higher percentage of exclusives as top selling games because those games usually tend to be high profile, often first party titles that get toted as system sellers. Obviously Nintendo titles are exclusives and are pretty much always the top titles on their respective systems – comprising a large number of the top selling games of all time.

In addition, during the PS1 and PS2 eras with both consoles handedly outselling their competitors it wasn’t too difficult for a game to be exclusive to one of those platforms and see phenomenal sales. Again it usually goes back to the high profile of exclusive titles – exclusives sell systems because they’re what that system offers that their competitors can’t.

Looking back on it I do think history plays quite a role in how those exclusives where able to garner the attention they did. In the current environment it seems we’re at an interesting situation where Wii titles generally tend to be exclusives due to the nature of the system whereas the PS3 and X360 are comparatively similar and thus it may “make sense” to multiplatform those titles. This is especially true since right now PS3 + 360 is a larger user base than the Wii. Thus a PS3/360 multiplatform is not a bad decision at all when aiming at those audiences and trying to make a return on the more substantial investment those games require. However, with the Wii distancing itself from its competitors it’ll be interesting to see what happens as Wii exclusive becomes more and more appealing vs. a PS3/360 multiplatform.

Again I think it comes around to how high profile the title is in the end. I can’t really recall a time when we’ve had too many multiplatform titles with the profiles of COD4, Assassin’s Creed and the upcoming GTAIV. Meanwhile many of the most talked about titles remain exclusives as each company tries to sell their console. I do think it’s interesting though with Microsoft treating it as a victory to get former PlayStation exclusives onto their system – thus attaining a rough parity in terms of games. Again this is a kind of historical context I think it’s important to keep in mind when viewing these issues.

Halo 2 and 3 have both sold 8 million and they are exclusive to XBox . mario exclusive to Nintendo has sold millions of games. Call of Duty 4 has also sold 8 million and that is multiplatform. GTA and Final Fantasy series have sold on average 10 million per installment on multiplatform.

mp because it is not just one one console

kingofwale said: BengaBanga said: Exclusives usually sell more than multiplatform games. (in regard to KHIII being Wii exclusive or Wii and PS2) I happen to disagree wholeheartedly, in today's age, where all 3 console shares the market. Is it possible for an exclusive to sell better than if it's in more than 1 console? Please reply with "yes" or "no" and then a short few lines explanation your answers. Thanks

Much of what I am about to say has been said above, but I want to distill it into one post:

Yes, it is completely possible.

If all else is equal -- if the finished game is otherwise identical -- then obviously it will do better as multiplatform.

But all is not equal; focusing on one console exclusively not only lets the developers focus their energy solely on making the game they want and not two or three of it, it also lets them take advantage of every hardware tweak they can lay hands on without worrying about being able to duplicate what they are doing in other hardware.

For example it is a well-known fact that the CPUs of the PS3 and 360 are radically different. I'm no programmer but it's obvious even to me that if someone uses every trick the Cell's 6 SPUs can be exploited to do it would be impossibly difficult to duplicate the results perfectly on the 360's Xenon. And, similarly, the Xenon's 3 fully-fledged cores are no doubt capable of feats that are a stone bitch to duplicate on the Cell with only one similar core, despite its 6 SPUs. And the rest of the hardware is different as well.

This is, of course, in addition to the simple fact that only one version of the game must be made, quality tested, etc.

These reasons ensure that exclusives do not sell better merely because the best developers are making exclusive games; there is going to be an inevitable impact on quality, even if the same people spend the same effort on the same game.

The main difference is going to be at the high end of the quality scale, where it's the small imperfections and lack thereof that separate the good games from the great games from the legendary ones.

In my opinion, that's why most of the "pretty good" to "great" games are multiplatform; the quality hit is small enough that the benefit of having a wider install base is greater. Then there's the low end of the spectrum, where "high-risk" experimental games and shovelware are exclusive because it's not even worth the extra effort to port them.

Of course I'm not an expert here so maybe there is not a trend where I think there is. And of course there are exceptions where the developer has decided to make the extra effort to craft the perfect multiplaform game.

And on the other hand, there are some types of games where after a certain standard of quality is met, further improvements pale in importance compared to sales base. Clearly these go multiplatform as a matter of course.

kingofwale said:
>Wii audience probably wouldn't want GT, maybe a select few...but if that wanted it, they would have got a PS3 ;)

I don't know... with the best racing game on that console being ExcitTruck... or "Cars". ;)

I don't think they'd dislike GT that much.

What about Mario Kart?

Final-Fan said: For example it is a well-known fact that the CPUs of the PS3 and 360 are radically different. I'm no programmer but it's obvious even to me that if someone uses every trick the Cell's 6 SPUs can be exploited to do it would be impossibly difficult to duplicate the results perfectly on the 360's Xenon. And, similarly, the Xenon's 3 fully-fledged cores are no doubt capable of feats that are a stone bitch to duplicate on the Cell with only one similar core, despite its 6 SPUs. And the rest of the hardware is different as well. This is, of course, in addition to the simple fact that only one version of the game must be made, quality tested, etc.

While you are correct, that the CPUs themselves differ it is quite difficult to harness these differences. The best way to write software for the PS-3 is to start PPE oriented (there are severe problems if you try to debug parallel programs). When your program runs you can start to optimize by using the SPEs, but at the same time you can start to optimize on the Xbox 360 to use the other cores.

The problem is: such optimizations can become pretty expensive, compared to the better performance.

In fact the costs to port between Xbox 360 and PS-3 (and even the PC) are lower than they were in previous versions, while all the other costs (due to HD) went up significantly (better graphics need more details, which takes more time for the artists and so on).

These consoles have so much power that it is pretty easy to port between them, but due to the bigger complexity you will get more bugs and many of these bugs are plattform independent! So you won't really need 3 times more testers for three platforms, but you can attract up to three times as many customers.

I t is only a matter of cost efficiency and wether you like it or not, multy plattform games are on these plattforms much more efficient than exclussive games.

>What about Mario Kart?

Mario Kart isn't close to be out, so I didn't count it.

besides, Mario kart isn't a pure racer, I'd be me counting Twisted Metal-esqu car battle game as racer.

exclusive games would sell a lot more on a single platform but be leveled out and probably beaten by the combined sales..., though the game wouldnt be as ferviently beloved by fans of the console, and probably the extra copies sold would barely pay for the extra expenses of developing for multiple platforms.

Well, I haven't read everyones posts, so I'm not sure if this has been covered or not.... But I'm pretty sure gh3 was the best overall seller last year (correct me if I'm wrong, it may have just been for multiplatform games). With two consoles, gta 4 will be a tough nut to crack this year, even with the strong wii sales.