Following my rant on DLC, I thought I’d continue this trend of fury and write about another gaming phenomenon that really gets my dander up. I’ve never used that phrase before but it seemed better than, ‘gets all up in my shit’ which I’m pretty sure isn’t even relevant, but whatever.
As you may have gathered by now, I’m an Xbox owner, and apart from the tendency of the originals to internally combust because the design was utterly shite compounded by the soldering being performed by functionally inept monkeys, I’m incredibly happy with my purchase and have always considered it to be a fantastic piece of kit. You can divide real gamers into either PS3 owners or Xbox owners (the Wii doesn’t count. Neither do people who have both. You can just shove off) and for the most part, we’re all pretty happy because we can all get the same games and the same services. Of course, there’s always the inevitable and almost compulsory flame war that occurs between each group over which is the best console but it’s just become more of a light hearted community in-joke because we all know that the Xbox is better. Uhh, I mean, we all know that they’re both the same. Yes. Right.
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| I feel you man, I feel you. |
But gamers are brought together in mutual irritation at the current state of the most horrible gaming industry decision ever: Console exclusives. Now really, what the frickity frick is that all about? I struggle to understand why we as consumers are held to ransom over which console we’ve chosen to buy just because of what appears to me as an uninformed peon, to be an arbitrary decision made by a developer. It seems the most ridiculous economic decision ever made since I bought a pair of hair curlers (I’d forgotten that I wasn’t a real girl). How does it make sense to cut out a huge section of your market? Games like Drake Unchartered and Heavy Rain come to mind, which, had they been on the Xbox also, I would have certainly bought, especially Unchartered which is just up my street. However, they weren’t available to me so the industry missed out on a nice wad of my cash. Serves them bloody right.
I do realise that certain exclusives can sway people one way or another if they’re deciding which console to buy, thereby giving Microsoft or Sony that midyear boost in consoles sales but after that initial potential spike, the losses must be greater when such a huge percentage of those consoles owners are unable to buy games they would otherwise normally buy. The console owners are caught in the crossfire of big company competition and I don’t think it’s fair. I freaking want to play Unchartered!
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| "Fuck you Microsoft/Naught Dog/Sony/Whoever can be held responsible for the fact Minnie can't have me." |
Also, it’s not just console exclusivity that I think is completely crap, for want of a more eloquent statement, but also agreements between developers and companies such as Microsoft and Activision, who bought the rights to release any Call of Duty DLC a month earlier on Xbox 360 than on the PS3. This isn’t fair, not when the game is released on both consoles anyway because it serves no purpose other than to infuriate an important section of the fan base. I very much doubt if being able to get the DLC early leads you to consider one console better than the other, so it really serves no major economic purpose, it just seems a selfish and unfair lesson in how to alienate your consumers. I don’t know how much Microsoft paid Activision for the privelage but I think it was an incredibly dick move by both parties.
It seems that I’m just one big gaming hippie. I just wanna be free!
Great read and totally agree, I cant see any benefit to having dlc a month earlier than ps3 owners its just inconvenient. I would argue that gaming would benefit from a single console future. I always get shot down saying that with ppl pointing out that the lack of competition would reduce the quality of games.
ReplyDeleteI would counter that with videogame developers being forced to compete with themselves for our gaming dollars and in fact increase the quality of games. If Gran Turismo was suddenly competing with Forza would they both eventually be even better because of it.
@chris
ReplyDeleteYou do make a valid point because yes, the competition would suddenly be intense and they'd really have to blow us away with their offerings. I'd worry though that it may potentially put some developers off because they'd no longer have the exclusive forum of one of the consoles to offer them a metaphorical safety net.
But sadly, Sony and Microsoft are just far too big for one of them ever to stop producing consoles. I do think that it's time for them to buck up their ideas though and consider how much good will and profit they could garner from releasing all games on both consoles. Just imagine what Halo could do for the PS3 for example! It's one of the most popular IPs of all time that some people don't have the chance to play! That's just crazy to me :P
It certainly is inconvenient having to decide which platform to get games for. I struggled immensely with my decision to get Alice: Madness Returns for PS3 rather than for PC (the PS3 version came with a code for the original Alice, marginalizing the $10 premium over the PC variant). I would like to point out a couple of things that support console exclusives, though.
ReplyDeleteA quick look online revealed to me that Halo, Gears of War, Uncharted, and Little Big Planet are some examples of console exclusives that are backed by major publishers, i.e. Microsoft and Sony. I think that these publishers are banking on the fact that if a console exclusive is really good, it'll ultimately lead to more profit due to more units of their respective console being sold.
Also, sticking to one platform most likely reduces development costs and potentially allows a game to be optimized for a certain platform. You've probably heard of console ports that are considerably worse than their originals. Bayonetta, for example, had frame rate issues on the PS3, but not on the 360. GTA IV ran beautifully on consoles, but was not optimized in the slightest for PC.
I agree with you that all IPs should be as accessible as possible, but sometimes making a port for every possible platform can be just as much of a money making scheme.
Seems someone mentioned exactly the same in an unpublished article before. :P
ReplyDeleteI agree though, as you know. ;)
@Jwoozer
ReplyDeleteIt's actually the backing by majour companies that annoys me because it leads to the console exclusives. In some ways, it feels a litle like black mail ie. We won't publish your game if you don't make it an exclusive.
And yes, that is a major point I didnt mention but I understand the difficulty of porting and I do appreciate that it can be too expensive to do, but my thoughts to that would be that the costs could be recouped when both console owners can buy it because otherwise, you're really cutting out a huge portion of your potential market, I would have thought.
Although, your last point is interesting, because you're right, I wouldn't want them to botch the job just to release it on both consoles (I'm really only thinking PS3 and Xbox 360 here because you can't port something to the Wii, it's just not feasible, it'd have to be a whole new game)
@Ali
Oh gosh yes, you're totally right, I'd forgotten totally about your one and thinking back, yours is far far better, you should post it on GS :)