One of the complaints about videogames as old as the medium itself is the idea of exclusives, a videogame being available for one console but not the other. Now from a consumers perspective I can understand this complaint, we want the best of everything and if other games can go cross-platform then why can't others? But at the same time I’ve always seen exclusivity as a good thing...in theory, but we'll get to that. Fact of the matter is exclusives is the key to adding value to your product, the casual gamer or even the average gamer doesn't really care about software and hardware, if it works then it works, at that point the only distinguishable difference is the content, what can be played? This is why I’ve always said the PlayStation is my favourite console, because it has the better exclusives from day one, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Sly Cooper, Ratchet & Clank, Rayman, Jak & Daxter, Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, Uncharted, The Last of Us, Heavy Rain, God of War, Infamous, Little Big Planet, Metal Gear Solid, Ape Escape, Devil May Cry, etc. etc. etc. Now yes some of those games have gone over to multi-platform but they started out as PlayStation exclusives and is the reason why I have been a PlayStation fan since the original console.
But apart from just my personal experiences it's also good for competition, if one console has better exclusives the product is going to sell better, this will lead to the other console to produce more exclusive games and constantly going up in quality to the point where it doesn't really matter which side of the boat you're on, you're going to get great quality games...this is where the "in theory" comes into play. Frankly the reason why Xbox is faltering behind is because they don't seem to realise this is the key to a better product, Microsoft have always struggled with holding onto first party developers and the ones they do have they seem to beat into the ground to squeeze every last bit of profit they can out of their very small roster of exclusive games, namely Halo and Gears of War, two franchises that should have died years ago. This only gets made worse with the idea of 'timed exclusives' this is the industries way of adding an extra £300 to the price tag of a game by giving the illusion of an exclusive but really they're just rubbing it in your face that they have a cool new toy and you can only play with it when no one else wants it anymore. The worst example for this is with the new Rise of the Tomb Raider, a sequel to a game that was not an exclusive but now is, except it wasn't revealed like that, it wasn't until several months after the announcement of the game that they actually revealed it was an exclusive to Xbox One and it wasn't until several months after that announcement that they revealed it was going to be a timed exclusive, for a whole fucking year. Not only is this a shitty marketing strategy equivalent to treating us like dogs, teasing us with a nice treat and then taking it away at the last second, but it's also shitty as a business practise. 2013's Tomb Raider did really well and sold over 8.5 million copies to date, making it the most successful Tomb Raider game in history, so this isn't a Bayonetta 2 scenario, where Nintendo game Platinum Games a shit ton of money and without it the game wouldn't exist, but rather Microsoft bribing Square Enix into letting them have the game first because videogame companies are greedy little fuckers who don't give a shit about their customers.
But even though I love PlayStation, this doesn't absolve Sony from any of their shitty practises when it comes to exclusives, this is where the issue with exclusive content comes into play. With games like Watch Dogs or Destiny they are often marketed by offering extra content with the PlayStation version, everything from new skins and weapons to entirely new missions offering hours of content. This is just as bad as pre-order DLC, removing content that was created alongside the game and locking it away to create a false sense of value, that the entire experience of playing the game will be different when really it's all superficial changes there to make you feel more special and important to play their version. Because why put the extra effort in to make well-made content for your product when you can just throw money at it and make your competitors experience worse rather than making your own better?
So to sum this all up, are console exclusives a good thing? Yes, but again, in theory, as for the state of the gaming industry and how it tackles this idea, or any idea actually, it's pretty fucked up.
-Danny
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