by Stephen Hyland
Looking at the gaming industry in the present day, we can see the many different platforms in which we can play games on. We have Playstation, Xbox, Wii; you know the rest (PC MASTER RACE - Ed). When released to the public, most games tend to be on a broad range of machines, however, we do get the odd game in which the developers have struck up a deal with a console company and have made that game exclusive to only one (occasionally more) console/s. From inFAMOUS to Gears of War, from Mario to LittleBigPlanet, these games are only playable through one, singular selected platform. But of course, most of you reading this will know what exclusives are but I’m not here to explain them…I’m here to ask you if they’re a good idea.
Looking at the gaming industry in the present day, we can see the many different platforms in which we can play games on. We have Playstation, Xbox, Wii; you know the rest (PC MASTER RACE - Ed). When released to the public, most games tend to be on a broad range of machines, however, we do get the odd game in which the developers have struck up a deal with a console company and have made that game exclusive to only one (occasionally more) console/s. From inFAMOUS to Gears of War, from Mario to LittleBigPlanet, these games are only playable through one, singular selected platform. But of course, most of you reading this will know what exclusives are but I’m not here to explain them…I’m here to ask you if they’re a good idea.
As previously mentioned, there are some huge, magnificent franchises or game series, which are specifically designed for one machine. Take the Halo series for example; these games are large to say the least. It is big in the way of its action, its characters, its plot. However, it’s also big in its fan-base and the amount it pulls in with every release. As we all know, Halo is exclusive to the folks over at Microsoft, not to Sony and Nintendo, we’re not even going to go there. Considering the fact that it is sold to a minority and not the majority; it sure does rake in a lot of money, doesn’t it? To be exact, Halo 4 took in $220m within the first 24 hours of it being on sale…and that’s quite a lot. Xbox customers alone aided the Halo franchise into seeing with dollar signs in its eyes, but can you just imagine how much it would make if it were available to the Playstation market; probably at least double that amount. Although we may not admit it most of the time, but us PS fans would actually love a taste of Halo on a familiar system. Then we have to look at the other side of things, and that is…
By releasing the game strictly onto one platform, it gains more fans for that console in particular. I’m sure that if Halo were to be a multi-platform game, there’d be less users of the Xbox as they could play the game on their preference of computer. You’ll get some wanting a bit of the Halo action on their PC, some on a PS3 and maybe even some on the Wii U (that's a very big maybe). By Microsoft striking up these deals with game studios, there’s a big chance that people will switch console, just to play that game that they think looks damn cool. Therefore, there are two ways to go about the whole “exclusives ordeal”: A) You make it available to one console and you get to welcome new members of your fanbase or B) You make it available to everybody (or near enough) to get more cash.
Both sides of the argument are very strong, and even while writing this article; I have trouble realizing which direction would be best. Personally, I love the look of the upcoming game Titanfall… but I’m part of the Playstation Nation…damn it. I’d love to own it, just not on an Xbox or PC. On the other hand, I think it can be good to have exclusives as it expresses each company’s tastes and views. Playstation have LittleBigPlanet, so that represents them as creative, full of ingenuity and really, just children at heart. Xbox has Gears of War, so it shows them as crazed killers wanting your blood served to them on a chainsaw. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t quite a fair comparison, but I still make my point. So yeah, I’m stuck in the middle (with you) of this argument. Exclusives: bad or good? Let us know down below in the comment section. Until next time gamers, goodbye and stay playing.
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