What is the point of a console exclusive?
- Thread starter mrhappyface
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Basically what he said.ChromeAlchemist said:
And now, some music!
I don't want to set the world on fire
I just want to start
A flame in your heart
In my heart I have but one desire
And that one is you
No other will do
I've lost all ambition for worldly acclaim
I just want to be the one you love
And with your admission that you feel the same
I'll have reached the goal I'm dreaming of
Believe me!
I don't want to set the world on fire
I just want to start
A flame in your heart! *Nah na na na na nah na nah nah!*
Many console exclusive games are developed by studios that are owned, whole or in part, by the console maker and ends up a matter of 'the boss says so'. It is to their benefit to have as many exclusive titles on their system as possible so that it makes their system more attractive to the consumer. They put up the funds for making the game, they decide which platforms it ends up on.
Games made by studios that aren't owned by the console makers are exclusive for different reasons. The first is accepting a bribe from one of the console manufacturers who will offer the money for the same reasons mentioned in the first paragraph.
Single platform titles are also faster, easier, and therefore cheaper to produce because the developer only has to buy one set of development kits, pay one set of fees/royalties, etc. It also only needs to be built to run on one set of hardware, only needs to run through quality assurance once, etc. The focus they put on only one version of the game also translates into it having fewer bugs, higher framerates and better controls which can also increase sales.
For smaller studios, the lower up front costs of developing the game can make the difference between it being made or not.
Games made by studios that aren't owned by the console makers are exclusive for different reasons. The first is accepting a bribe from one of the console manufacturers who will offer the money for the same reasons mentioned in the first paragraph.
Single platform titles are also faster, easier, and therefore cheaper to produce because the developer only has to buy one set of development kits, pay one set of fees/royalties, etc. It also only needs to be built to run on one set of hardware, only needs to run through quality assurance once, etc. The focus they put on only one version of the game also translates into it having fewer bugs, higher framerates and better controls which can also increase sales.
For smaller studios, the lower up front costs of developing the game can make the difference between it being made or not.
same reason why most Americans are afraid of universal health-care--SOCIALISM!!!! *le gasp!*mrhappyface said:
Well, what you're proposing isn't *exactly* socialism, but it would very much destroy capitalism (at least in the gaming sector). The industry would be monopolized by either Sony or Microsoft and then you'd lose all the healthy competition that's supposed to keep economy going. Plus, competition amongst these companies is what produces high-quality games. The 1-up-manship that you can find in almost any industry is typically meant to benefit the consumers as well as the proprietors.
Oy. I'm sorry, that has absolutely jack and squat to do with it. Capitalism says, on the developer's side of things, that it's best to release to the widest audience humanly possible.Patroclus said:
The REAL reason: The 360, PS3, and Wii aren't the same piece of hardware. Developers LITERALLY have to re-code a ton of stuff from the ground-up to work with the different processing technologies. It doesn't sound like that should be the case, but it really is. Because of the Cell processor the PS3 especially is a real mess to make a game for unless you really focus hard on it. The Wii, meanwhile, is a lot weaker than the other consoles and requires virtually everything technological in a game to be stripped down. Graphics can't be nearly as complex, so a game that ordinarily depends on a complex lighting system has to have most of its assets flat-out re-made so that the same characters and objects look good on lower tech standards--IE: with flat color painted on the model instead of ridiculously complex shaders, normal maps, specular maps, etc. What's more, physics-heavy stuff has to be lopped clean out, which, in the case of physics-heavy games, can mean really bad things.
Sonic Unleashed, Ghostbusters: The Game, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and many other cross-platformed games of late provide key examples of these principles at work. In the case of all three of these the developers actually had to make completely different games for the Wii and PS2 in order to cross-platform to them, and both Sonic and Ghostbusters rather famously didn't turn out as well on the PS3. Now, of course nobody in this thread is lining up to buy these games, and to be fair they have a lot of design problems just on their own, but you might have actually wanted these games if the developers had done things just a little differently. For all the effort they put into cross-platforming to release to a broader audience, they could have instead not re-coded every blasted little thing for the PS3's cell processor, not blown a ton of money on designing, developing, and publishing two versions of the same game and porting it over to PSP (which Lucasarts themselves admit was an incredible headache), and instead sunk those resources into creating a cohesive, polished game for one console that you'd be proud to have on your shelf.
That, my friends, is the real reason that good developers don't cross-platform. There's a lot of other business reasons as well--console developers tend to give really good deals to their exclusives, especially if they can deliver games that offer a good reason to pick up the console. I'll admit, though, that it's not all smiles and hugs when it comes to this stuff. There's a lot of bad things about the console model as well, as motivated by greed as anything else--but not from the developers' standpoint so much as the console manufacturer's standpoint.
Imagine you're a filmmaker. Try and imagine if Magnavox, Sony, Samsnung, and Phillips each charged you a royalty fee in order to make your DVDs compatible with their DVD players. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine that for some inane reason you also have to pay $3,million just to get a decent camera, and then, you have to pay another $500,000 to the folks who manufacture your camera for every DVD player you want the movie to be able to play on. That's the world game developers live in, paying enormous fees to console manufacturers and engine-developers both just so that they can make their vision come to life.
The fact is, though, that this is a different world from film, much more dependent on the technology that's used to deliver the product. With a movie or a TV show, all that matters is video playback--and you hardly even need a computer to handle that. With consoles, though, computing power is necessary and determines everything a game can do. With more powerful consoles developers get more and more tools to work with, but this is also a double-edged sword in that no law exists holding the different consoles to the same technological standard at any given point in time. As long as that continues to be the case, then, these are the issues that game developers are going to face.
okay, clearly you gave this a lot of thought. A little scary but i appreciate the intellectual stimulation.NickCaligo42 said:
I agree with you, but I can't help but feel that you misunderstood me, which was probably my fault for considering the topic in terms of another question: why do we have to have all these different systems in the first place? why can't it all be assimilated into one system?
Yes, capitalism is about accessing as many consumers as possible, but in order to do that you need to have a better product than your competitors. If somebody wants to make more money than Microsoft or Sony then he or she is going to have to make a product that's better than the XBOX360 or PS3. And, in support of your argument, because it would be a completely different machine, games would have to be re-coded in order to cross-over to that platform.
Hope I rectified my argument there. Otherwise, too bad, my brain's fried and i have finals next week. cya later
Here's a tip
If you ever wonder why we do something the way we do in a capitalist world, or most any world really, the answer will invariably be money.
If you ever wonder why we do something the way we do in a capitalist world, or most any world really, the answer will invariably be money.
If there was only one conswole there would be no competition. Developers could toss out one piece of shovelware after another and we would have to buy it. Meanwhile they could charge whatever they want for the console. Look at the price drops over the past year. Nintendo makes a cheap system. So MS drops the price on thiers and sells tons. Sony sees that and drops the price on thiers and sales are boosted. Competiton is good for consumers. You just need to learn to tune out the fanboy stupidity.
Developers make lots of games exclusive so its not just any one game that would make someone buy one console over anotherrmcsqrd said:
OT: I imagine microsoft and sony pay 3rd party developers LOTS of money to make games exclusive to their console... don't hold me to that, I wouldnt know about any thing like that ot beiing a dev or sony/microsoft employee.
And games made by sony/microsoft? well they want the money made from console sales that go with lots of exclusives as I mentioned above