Why aren't there more exclusive titles anymore?

There's a reason why I haven't bought a PS 4 or X Bone. Because I can barely find some exclusives, and games are being made for both systems. Take for example Kingdom Hearts 3. It's being made for both If I have both consoles, which version do I get? I'm just trying to throw out a situation here. That's why I prefer to stick with the Wii U. For all of it's flaws, it has more exclusive titles than PS 4 and X Bone combined.

money.

games make more on multiple platforms, which is important in an age where games are getting more ambitious and much more expensive to make.

exclusives are usually paid for by companies, ala Sony with Bloodborne.

edited 9th Jan '16 12:49:44 PM by wehrmacht

Can't tell how serious a question this is, but it boils down to money. Making games is hard and expensive and neither Microsoft nor Sony are exclusively videogame companies. It makes more financial sense for them to get third party developers on their systems and keep those third parties happy than to spend a lot of money making their own games.

For third party devs, going exclusive means leaving money on the table.

Nintendo is the odd one out. Since they're just a game company, they have to compete with other console makers so they make their own games, which also puts them in competiton with third party developers.

And it's not to say that Microsoft and Sony don't have first party games, but their output rarely drowns out third parties.

It's due to the skyrocketing development costs for making games since the beginning of the PS 3/Wii/360 era (Which is when exclusives became much less common outside of Nintendo). Development costs for the Xbox One and the PS 4 are ridiculous huge, especially AAA realistic games which are the majority of games on them, so they try to sell to as many consoles as possible. Nintendo make their own games, don't like stretching their limits as much and rarely make realistic games, so they are the ones with the most exclusives.

edited 9th Jan '16 12:58:35 PM by Bat178

Assuming you mean 3rd party AAA exclusives, the answer is quite simple: money. As the Playstation and X Box hardware becomes increasingly similar, and with the increasing cost of game production, its only logical, and perhaps even necessary to make games multiplatform in order to reach the largest possible audience and maximize profits. Unlike a decade ago when games were cheaper to make and freaking everybody had a PS 2, the PS 4 and X Box One are both more evenly spread, and have not individually sold enough to match the PS 2's sales.

The reason the Wii U has a ton of exclusives is because, frankly, Nintendo are the only people making games for the Wii U. 3rd parties tried selling on the Wii and Wii U, and they simply didn't sell enough to justify the cost of porting over. In Ubisoft's case, they've admitted to holding games back from releasing on the Wii U until the console has sold more, which is rather self defeating; Rocksteady has said the Wii U simply wasn't powerful to run Arkham Knight; and probably most damningly EA is flatout against Nintendo for reasons others can explain better than I. 3rd party support for Nintendo is more or less directed entirely to the 3DS.

As for 1st party games on the PS 4 and Xbone: Sony is making them, most simply haven't been released yet, and Xbox still has Halo, Forza, etc., but Microsoft sees it more as a general entertainment box than a game console.

You want to know which system to get KH 3 on? Whichever one you have, or will be cheapest to have. It apparently runs better on PS 4, and Square Enix has said that after KH 3 and FFXV release they're going back to just Playstation (for the JRP Gs at least, I assume Deus Ex, Tomb Raider, etc. will still be multiplat). But they are a Japan based company talking about Japanese games, and X Box simply doesn't sell in Japan, and most of their foreigns have Playstation, so once again it just comes down to economics.

And for non-AAA exclusives, Sony has a fuckton.

EDIT:'d by people who said it better and shorter.

edited 9th Jan '16 1:10:52 PM by TheAirman

Really? I'm curious if there are people buying both a PS 4 and Xbone version of the same game, and that's why it's making more money than I thought. If I were to be forced to make a game for both the Xbone and PS 4, I'd pull a Pokemon and/or Fire Emblem Fates, and make sure the console versions have unique differences. I wonder if it's been done before, at least on different consoles.

Probably not.

Most people own one of the consoles, and by being on both ps4 and xbone a game has a wider installbase.

I shed few tears for exclusives. Perhaps the death-knell of exclusives was rung when Mario won the mascot wars.

That. People who have multiple consoles are going to buy a game for the console that their friends are buying it on. If its a strictly singleplayer game, they'll likely just buy for whichever they prefer, or for the one that looks prettier.

edited 9th Jan '16 1:13:44 PM by TheAirman

exclusives still exist, though, they're just not really as prominent as they once were.

If the video game industry stopped trying to be Hollywood, maybe we would get more exclusives.

i still more or less decide by exclusives, but they're usually not more than a few.

i want a ps4 because of bloodborne and nier automata (and i guess last guardian). i have trouble recalling other exclusives, but these three are sufficient.

Uncharted 4, No Mans Sky (also on PC), and Horizon Zero Dawn are the other three big PS 4 exclusives, all set to release this year. Also, Ace Combat 7 has been announced, and various SE stuff (Kingdom Hearts II.8, Star Ocean, FFVIIR is PS 4 first).

edited 9th Jan '16 1:32:40 PM by TheAirman

Even Sony and Nintendo pretty much said around the time PS 4 launched that in their opinion(I think 2 of their bosses even said they each had a PS 4, Wii U and N 3 DS at home in a interview IIRC) if you can afford 2 home consoles it's best to get a PS 4 and Wii U due to that giving you access to 3rd party games(including all JRP Gs due to Microsoft deciding it wasn't worth it to pay for some to be exclusive this gen), all Nintendo 1st party games and all Sony 1st party games. Sony and Nintendo doesn't see each other as enemies in the industry.

The big thing nowadays is instead marketing deals. Last gen Microsoft got COD and other shooters to always have a Xbox logo in ads thanks to a lot of americans buying the 360 for Halo. Activision and others wanted in on that shooter crowd. As a result even more americans bought the 360 for COD and Bulletstorm etc.

Now? After Microsofts failure with the One to attract a majority and not offering enough for the marketing deal they all instead went to the console that sells really well(35.9 million as of last week which means the PS 4 is the #13 best selling console ever while still having years left to go)which got a ton of former 360 users to switch over to the PS 4 because all the games they're playing get exclusive maps, are at the Sony E3 event etc. Sony even got the marketing rights for the new Star Wars game that came out right before the biggest movie of the decade came out and had ads everywhere for it.

To add to that we have companies like Square Enix saying "None of our primary audience are on Xbox and we can't get the console to run as well as we can get stuff to work on PS 4 and Microsoft refuses our request to put FFXIV on the One due to not wanting Xbox players to play with PC and PS 4 users. We aren't going to pay for ports on our own that won't sell. We're leaving and from now on our non-Eidos based games are going to be console exclusive to PS 4 with some later releases for PC and maybe something for Nintendo later. If you want something Microsoft you'll have to help pay for it or give us something."

edited 9th Jan '16 2:30:47 PM by LordofLore

Turn the question around. Why would you ever make an exclusive in favor of going for a larger install base? There are several reasons for this.

1. You are a first party studio (Nintendo EPD, Naughty Dog, 343) or are making a game in a series owned by the first party (Gamefreak and Pokemon/Insomniac and Ratchet and Clank). I assume this is self-explanatory and needs no elaboration.

2. A first party gives you financial incentives to be platform/ecosystem exclusive such as funding the game directly (Bayonetta 2/Street Fighter V), marketing/online infastructure assistance (Rise of the Tomb Raider in theory, some extent for Monster Hunter), funding in exchange for IP ownership (Sunset Overdrive), or what's often called a moneyhat in order to keep it from other platforms (what seems to have really happened to Rise of the Planet of the Tomb Raiders).

Now Sony is letting several games they fund or otherwise give assistance to go to PC, and not even at a later date. I'm not sure the exact reason for this, but I presume this is to negate consumer backlash and because they don't see PC as a threat to their sales.

3. The developer does not have the funds/expertise to develop for multiple platforms at once, so they stick to one platform to lower costs. Shovel Knight is a good example (Steam and Nintendo exclusive), as are many indies in general. Once they've made back some money it's up to them to decide if it's worth porting to other platforms.

4. The game uses the hardware's features in ways that can't be replicated on other platforms. Etrian Odyssey and Affordable Space Adventures are good examples, as are countless PC games.

5. Other systems simply don't have the audience to support that kind of game. See, many AAA games skipping the Wii U, Japanese console games skipping the Xbox One, various 3DS and Vita exclusives, and many more. This is the main reason why Monster Hunter is handheld exclusive.

6. The developer/publisher decides to make it exclusive for no strong identifiable reason. See various 3DS and Vita games along with PS4 exclusives that would probably find an audience on PC.

1 is as strong as ever. 2 still occurs, but it usually requires a unique situation. 3 is bunk for most games above an indie budget. 4 doesn't happen much on the PS4 or XB1, as they don't have many features that can't be replicated on other systems. It also helps most 3DS exclusives stay exclusive. 5 is a common reason and explains many seemingly boneheaded decisions like why all Japanese focused developers aren't on 3DS or why console developers don't spend the little extra to port to XB1. 6 is the human element, as decision makers don't always make the right choices because of personal preferences or grudges against a platform.

For AAA games, which I assume is where the question comes from, these reasons generally don't apply. 1 is moot for third parties. 2 is generally unneeded, as the likes of Activision and EA have plenty of cash, though they're not opposed to making exclusive DLC to lower marketing costs or whatever because business. 3 isn't an issue if the game has a decent budget. 4 is uncommon for those games. 5 is a non-factor because the PS4 and XB1 both have strong audiences for shooters, open-worlds, sports, and most other AAA games. 6 is a non-issue because most publishers aren't that stupid (Square-Enix a few years ago aside).

edited 9th Jan '16 2:22:55 PM by Sterok

We've got to have...MONEY!

That is indeed a reason why most major game releases tend to not be exclusives. That's also a reason why most movie companies tend to plan a franchise right away instead of just waiting for the first movie to be successful (I miss when we actually had gaps between sequels all the time as opposed to sometimes, but that is for another forum).

Considering that Nintendo is getting screwed out of most multi-platform game deals, I guess that having exclusive games are not as much of an advantage as they used to be.

edited 11th Jan '16 1:59:22 PM by AHI-3000

God damn videogame hipsters wanting not everyone to be able to enjoy the same games as they do.

I tend to judge the overall quality of a system's library based on its exclusives. Doesn't mean that I don't enjoy multiplats, though.

Wouldn't you rather judge which system runs the same games better?

I can't really do that since most multiplats I don't own for all systems they are on (or, in Arkham City's case, barely played the original version).

Plus, me not really owning a PS 4 or Xbone limits me to pretty much exclusives and any multiplat that happens to get on the Wii U.

Edit: nevermind, I communicated poorly.

edited 11th Jan '16 11:56:00 PM by Novis

Both console are built the same, that's why.

PS 4 and Xbone are pretty much computers. Now, more than ever, it is much easier to get a game multiplatform, since not much has to change.

That's a good thing. Great games deserve to be played by as many people as possible, regardless of your platform of choice.

By this point it's really only first party games that are exclusive. The third party games tend to go multiplatform.

Honestly, the whole talk about how PS 4 and Xbone being very similar to each other, it's actually making me want either console even less. Maybe because I'm stuck to the Wii U. But again, if I have both consoles and there is a game released for both consoles, which version do I get? Now if there's some cases like Persona 5 where it's being both released on an older generation console like the PS 3 and a newer generation console like the PS 4, I'd just get the PS 4 version, because it (possibly) has better graphics.

Again, this is why if I ever make a multi platform game for the PS 4 and Xbone, I'd pull a Fire Emblem fates and both versions would have a different path to the story. Wouldn't I make more even money if I let people buy both versions of the game?