"Games aren’t cheap to make nowadays. Ask anyone on the street and they’ll tell you that these fancy graphics don’t pay for themselves. They take boatloads of money. Companies need a whole harbor of cash to make a decent game. So what if it flops? All that money vanishes and the company hides in the shadows as the CEO threatens to can every last person on staff, LucasArts style. We’ve already seen Capcom take steps to ensure their own security, by announcing that they are no longer making console-exclusive games. Are we headed toward an industry without console exclusives?
This wasn't supposed to happen.
It’s a growing trend in this expensive market. We all heard the dropping of jaws around the world when Final Fantasy XIII was announced for the 360. It makes sense for Square Enix to do this, since this gorgeous game has spent years festering in development without any return in revenue. They have to get their investment back some way and the millions of copies it would sell on the PS3 just wont’ be good enough.
BioShock was also a game that was never in a million years coming to PS3 and yet we see how that ended. Even the once exclusive Dead Rising is being ported to the Wii.
Which brings into question the whole argument of exclusives at all. When you think about it, the only people who benefit are the console manufacturers, and their rabid fanboys. On the other side of the coin are the developers and general (albeit poor) lovers of video games. The game developer’s miss out on a huge audience by limiting themselves to only one console while the poor consumer is forced to watch the grass grow greener on the other side of the fence. Why would anyone do this to us?
PS3 bound. Eventually.
As I see it, more and more developers are going to be porting their games from one console to another to make up for cost, and Capcom was just the first to blaze that trail. Don’t be surprised when games like Uncharted, Left 4 Dead, Gears of War, Motor Storm, Boom Blox and Mass Effect begin showing up on more than one box.
Without exclusives, though, there would be no console wars. Forums would be full of compliments and praise. Gamers would not hate each other for no real reason and video game news would be much less controversial. Sounds boring."
I'm wondering if this guy has any idea what he's talking about in the bolded part. I agree that we'll see less 3rd party exclusives, but most of those mentioned are owned by either Sony or MS, and I can't imagine those going multiplat.
EDIT: forgot the link =)
http://news.gotgame.com/exclusives-what-are-they-good-for-absolutely-nothin/12990/
