9
Apr
2009
Death of Exclusives: Why It’s a Good Thing
Everyone remembers the “good old days” of Dreamcast, PS1, and the SNES; and they also remember the reason why they owned all of the systems: Exclusives! 3rd party developers would have a favorite console of choice and would develop for that specific system for one reason or another, although they were not required to by any binding agreements. Those days are drawing to an end, and it’s unfortunate. Or is it?
Besides the 1st party studios, exclusives have become few and far between. The world is becoming a smaller place, technologies are getting much more powerful, and developers are looking for much larger audiences for their projects. Where does that lead them? Multiplatform development. (This does not include the Wii, because that console is not part of this generation; it’s an N64 with added bells and whistles.) Even games that were once exclusives have opened their eyes and crossed console lines: Devil May Cry 4, Bioshock, Lost Planet, possibly even the Mass Effect series.
But who does this benefit in the end? The consumer! With developers being able to reach a larger target audience, there are more games for each owner to choose from. Not only that, but it gives developers exposure to developing on multiple platforms, and the ability to choose which one will lead development for each project. We have seen the benefits that this can have from EA recently, as they learned their lesson from just trying to port games earlier. *cough* Orange Box *cough* The gamers are the ones reaping the benefits from all of this, as all console owners are getting access to more and more amazing titles.
This has been showed as a great thing especially with the multiplatform release of GTAIV, and this is the case about 99.9% of the time. The only time it’s not? When the transition to multiplatform does not benefit the customer at all, rather it is only in the self-interest of companies. I’m sure I don’t need to point any fingers as everyone knows what I’m talking about. When your company forgets who they are making games for, and is only concerned about dollar signs, then they need to have their priorities examined. To clarify, I’m not suggesting that the game shouldn’t have gone multiplatform, just that PS3 owners shouldn’t have to wait an additional year for a game that has already completed production on their platform. However, that’s the reason that I’m glad that Blu-rays are region free. Shout out to PlayAsia.com!