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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Microsoft is deserving of praise, not criticism, for XBox 1 not having many exclusives

CartBlanche said:
KiigelHeart said:

Over what, 30 million gamers already bought an xbox one this generation so surely the compelling reason has to be there somewhere. Just keep digging buddy!

If you had a choice to develop for a console with 70million gamers and 30million gamers, where would you as a business logically focus the company's efforts. Keeping in mind that for each platform you release on, means more overhead and more support you have to give.

Since both consoles are quite similar in performance, available RAM, architecture and target groups most companies will focus on the cumulative 100million gamers. The overhead is negligible (especially with popular engines like Unreal Engine, Frostbite, Unity, CryEngine and id Tech), the additional sales will more than make up for the effort, even if the sales aren't a 50:50 split.

Exclusives are only a thing if one of the platform owners pays for it.

Last edited by Conina - on 17 December 2017

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Conina said:
CartBlanche said:

If you had a choice to develop for a console with 70million gamers and 30million gamers, where would you as a business logically focus the company's efforts. Keeping in mind that for each platform you release on, means more overhead and more support you have to give.

Since both consoles are quite similar in performance, available RAM, architecture and target groups most companies will focus on the cumulative 100million gamers. The overhead is negligible (especially with popular engines like Unreal Engine, Frostbite, Unity, CryEngine and id Tech), the additional sales will more than make up for the effort, even if the sales aren't a 50:50 split.

Exclusives are only a thing if one of the platform owners pays for it.

The 2 console's OSes are different enough to need workarounds and therefore support headaches, IMO.

If it was so easy to gain parity across platforms, as you suggest, even with the game engine you sited, then we wouldn't be seeing Digital Foundry pointing out that Mulitplatform-Game-X is better on PS4 than on Xbox One and in some cases (few admittedly) still better than the more powerful Xbox One X.

Having worked on multi-plaform frameworks, it is NOT as easy as most people think. Not even the best game engines get it right, as Digital Foundry points out time and time again. Hence my argument that focussing on 1 platform to get the best bang for buck initially will make more sense as the gap grows between PS4 and Xbox One sales. Then once that game does well or not, decide if it is worth porting to Xbox One to make more money.

The only way I can see that being reversed is if developers decide they'll develop for the most powerful console first, but then the ports to PS4 and the bigger market will suffer. 

Time will tell which way the chips will fall. I think we'll have a pretty good idea of how game developers vote by the end of 2018.

 



CartBlanche said:

The 2 console's OSes are different enough to need workarounds and therefore support headaches, IMO.

If it was so easy to gain parity across platforms, as you suggest, even with the game engine you sited, then we wouldn't be seeing Digital Foundry pointing out that Mulitplatform-Game-X is better on PS4 than on Xbox One and in some cases (few admittedly) still better than the more powerful Xbox One X.

Parity? Which developer or publisher cares about parity between platform versions? And where is the parity between PS4 and PS4 Pro players? Where is the parity between Xbox One S and Xbox One X players? Where is the parity between Switch players playing undocked and Switch players playing docked? Where is the parity between console gamers playing on a huge TV and a tiny TV?

It is sales they care about, and they don't need many additional sales to make up for the additional costs, especially if the hardware is so similar.

CartBlanche said:

The only way I can see that being reversed is if developers decide they'll develop for the most powerful console first, but then the ports to PS4 and the bigger market will suffer. 

Time will tell which way the chips will fall. I think we'll have a pretty good idea of how game developers vote by the end of 2018.

No need to wait. Time HAS told again and again. Xbox 360 + PS3 + PC in 7th gen and Xbox One + PS4 + PC now. For over a decade most games where Sony or Microsoft didn't pay for exclusivity were released on all three platforms, a few on two of these platforms and almost none on only one platform. PC often had later ports in the first years of Xbox 360 + PS3, but every following year these cases became rarer.



It is out of fear that their system might get phased out early due to more people buying the competition. If Nintendo has games on the go and a high amount of exclusives, people will buy your console. See the Switch.

If the PS4 when it first launched runs multiplat games better than X1 AND has a good amount of exclusives, people will buy the PS4.

If the X1 has all of the same games as PS4 owners save for three major franchises for the most part, cancels exclusive games people were looking forward to, and the few available are on PC, there is little reason to own one TBH. Especially since it runs the worst versions of dedicated home console games (cause X1 is not portable) on top of all that.

The X1X has a little more incentive to buy as it now has the best versions of games supported, but the userbases have been set already and at the end of the day, it still plays the same games as PS4 (where a lot of people already have friends now and again, more exclusives are available on PS4).

That is why MS is rightfully bashed for their lack of exclusove content. As gamers, yes it is great as long as you don't play on X1. As an X1 owner where all of your achievements are on XBL, you fear for the consoles low sales by comparison and the idea of the console ending early (see WiiU) or them going PC service based like steam and dropping out of consoles.

Bottom line, if you make a console nearly identical to the direct competition (XB1 and PS4), you need exclusive content. Period...



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