Poll: Exclusive releases. Should it be banned?

[Daystar Clarion]

So anyway I was on you tube looking at ace combat 6 and I thought it was awesome. The only reason I don't go out and by it is because it is an xbox exclusive. DAMMIT NOT AGAIN! What is the point of exclusive releases/ all they do is continue the pointless argument over who got the better consule. At the end of the day, weather you play PS3 or 360 or PC, aren't we all gamers? Aren't we in it for the same thing? Why keep some games inaccessible to the rest because they didn't buy the 'right' console? So, should we ban exclusive releases?

You have no idea how business works do you?
Competition = diversity
Competition = competitive prices
Competition = Good for the consumer

Diversity is not linked to consoles, diversity is linked to developers, console producers try to grab exclusives to make their product more attractive. But that doesnt influence diversity of games at all.

Competitive prices?! In the gaming industry?! I am a gamer since the 80s and am yet to see competitive prices in games, unless by competitive prices you mean everybody practising the same outrageous prices, with exception of PC games because, you know, PC gaming is happily dying since 1985 and need to lower the prices to avoid dying sadly and dramatically.

Good for the consumer, in an extent yes, but not because anything related with business rules but like he says:

*snip*
Look at something like Bayonetta for example. Sure it was multi platform, but the PS3 version paled next to the 360 version because it was programmed for the 360. When you have one single target console you can potentially have much more focused development.

In gaming you have incompatibility problems that not only prevents you from swaping components from one platform to apply on another but it has implications in the use itself in a much more extended way then any other equipment you might use in your life (from TV to car, to mobile phone, DVD player, etc). Either games are exclusives to one and not compatible at all with others, or their performance is just optimized in one or a few of the platforms.

Ok, business as we know it is null and void because you deem it so. Righto.

 

[asinann]

And what happens when Sony or Microsoft or Nintendo make a game themselves? They would have to make it for everything? That's bloody ridiculous.

 

[Plurralbles]

no, that's retarded.

 

[mad825]

And what happens when Sony or Microsoft or Nintendo make a game themselves? They would have to make it for everything? That's bloody ridiculous.

Microsoft were known to port their exclusives to the PC however they have changed there minds in the recent years

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

If you concentrate on one console you can make the game better.
It's more exclusive, but more work was put into it and therefore it is higher quality.
In theory, at least.

 

[asinann]

And what happens when Sony or Microsoft or Nintendo make a game themselves? They would have to make it for everything? That's bloody ridiculous.

Microsoft were known to port their exclusives to the PC however they have changed there minds in the recent years

And what is Microsoft's bread and butter business again? Oh, right. Windows, you know, a PC operating system.

 

[Therumancer]

I have no real problem with the idea of console exclusives despite them being annoying when you don't have the appropriate console. What's more I tend to think that exclusive titles oftentimes wind up being better when custom developed for one set of hardware rather than being designed in a universal format that can run off of everything. It's not always like that, but it seems to happen quite a bit, and can be especially noticible if an exclusive game is ported years after the fact to hardware it wasn't developed for.

On the other hand I have also felt that the whole "console wars" thing has been getting stupid in recent years. I'm sort of waiting to see if they will ever decide to go with a universal format for video games, and then have hardware producers simply produce competing consoles, trying to provide the best quality for the lowest price and undercut the other guys. Sort of like what we've seen with VHS machines and DVD players in the past.

I understand why it's unlikely to happen, but that's still pretty much where I've been hoping things would go.

 

[Outright Villainy]

Well to be honest I've never been a big fan of Mario
I've played a lot of the games, its just... after Sunshine I just, well... kind of gave up on them.

Well, except for Mario Kart, of course.

Well did you like mario 64? Galaxy a return to form of the 3-D mario. it's much closer in spirit to 64 (I'd even say it's better putting nostalgia aside), Sunshine was kind of weak...

 

[Akai Shizuku]

I propose complete collectivization of the gaming industry, with instead of several corporations competing we have a unified game development body, creating more games and fewer consoles that everybody can have access to...for free, of course, because this would only work under socialism or within a communist society.

The main principle behind this is that cooperation works better than competition.

 

[Irridium]

Well to be honest I've never been a big fan of Mario
I've played a lot of the games, its just... after Sunshine I just, well... kind of gave up on them.

Well, except for Mario Kart, of course.

Well did you like mario 64? Galaxy a return to form of the 3-D mario. it's much closer in spirit to 64 (I'd even say it's better putting nostalgia aside), Sunshine was kind of weak...

Yeah I liked 64. Its my favorite one actually.

I'd have tried Galaxy and the other newer ones, but I'm just not that interested in them. Not saying they're bad or boring, they just don't seem to interest me at all.

 

[Wizco]

I propose complete collectivization of the gaming industry, with instead of several corporations competing we have a unified game development body, creating more games and fewer consoles that everybody can have access to...for free, of course, because this would only work under socialism or within a communist society.

The main principle behind this is that cooperation works better than competition.

The problem here is that if everything comes under one company, complacency is a very realistic issue. Not that I'm an avid fan of the free market and the sky rocketing prices it somehow manages to introduce, but a monopoly position is a danger to the little man.

I can personally see the allure of an exclusive, seeing as to how not all consoles target the same gamers (Wii vs. PS3). Not all consoles have the same power behind them either, or the same kind of controls. So it would be fool-hardy to say you can't make a game for one console and not for the others, imo.

 

[Marter]

Without exclusives, there is little reason to buy more than one console. It's neat to see the take on a system that each company does, and without exclusives, they'd all have to be nearly the same.

 

[Chunko]

Post scipt.

All right I get it. I'm in a sad minority who just want to play another flight sim that lets them shoot down giant flying battle ships and fly down the barrel of a giant rail gun. I was hopping for a spontaneous outpouring of gamer rage and unit those who live with the curse of not being able to play a game casue they brought the wrong console and lead them in a final battle against the game and console manufacturers to make things a bit more fair, and what i got was a council worker coming round telling me to take down my fucking stupid recruitment stand.

Well fuck it. Fell free to pay me out as much as you want. I am not coming back here and don't try to quote me in the hope that i will read it in my mail because I will just delete it. Lets just end this now.

Some games are better on certain consoles. I don't want to play uncharted on my xbox, the graphics would be terrible, and I don't want to play a wii game which relies on motion sensing on my PS3 because then it wouldn't be fun, oh wait... nevermind.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

stop making PC ports of 360 games they don't deserve them

More like stop making bad PC ports of 360 games, because we don't want them. If they can be bothered to put a little effort into making it work right, that's one thing, but I've seen some really janky ports lately that make me want to kick the dev team in the junk.

As far as exclusives being good or not, I think a few dozen people have covered that pretty thoroughly already.

 

[Akai Shizuku]

I propose complete collectivization of the gaming industry, with instead of several corporations competing we have a unified game development body, creating more games and fewer consoles that everybody can have access to...for free, of course, because this would only work under socialism or within a communist society.

The main principle behind this is that cooperation works better than competition.

The problem here is that if everything comes under one company, complacency is a very realistic issue. Not that I'm an avid fan of the free market and the sky rocketing prices it somehow manages to introduce, but a monopoly position is a danger to the little man.

I can personally see the allure of an exclusive, seeing as to how not all consoles target the same gamers (Wii vs. PS3). Not all consoles have the same power behind them either, or the same kind of controls. So it would be fool-hardy to say you can't make a game for one console and not for the others, imo.

Oh nonono, I apologize. I've misrepresented my argument. I'm not talking about monopoly, I'm proposing collectivization, which also means democratization. I believe that companies should always serve the will of the people.

 

[dodo1331]

No, exclusives are often the only games that push boundaries on their respective platforms.

Why do you think most PC games are still using DirectX 9?

Because the jump from DirectX9 to DirectX10 is hardly noticeable?

 

[Callate]

Regrettably, there are still costs involved in porting a game to different platforms. I'm not entirely sure it's good business sense for third-party developers to make exclusives unless their development costs are being paid directly out of the pockets of the console companies, but I think exclusives are here to stay for now.

What I'm waiting for is someone to come up with a platform that's truly cross-compatible, enabling all the major players to play it with various different consoles at various different resolutions with various different controllers, yet with a single unified code set.

Ironically, Flash may be the closest we've come to such a thing... Which may be part of why Apple has gone berserk.

 

[sailor_960]

Without exclusives the console wars basically boil down to fanboyism and price.

How would a dwindling console war be a bad thing?