The problem isn't companies making exclusive games, it consumers. Morons actually fuelling "console wars", retarded "brand loyalty" and rabid fanboyism. I'm a fan of video games, not specific consoles or my PC. Anyone promoting one console over another is just marketing a product without getting paid for it. Beyond retarded.

I honestly see no rational reason to have exclusives.

I'm not sure how to fix this, companies have to compete. If you are a gamer who has favorite games on both consoles, then you have to get both. :/

Gamers are the most self entitled people on the planet. If you don't like what a company is doing with a console don't buy it. But then again logic goes out the window for a few gamers out there. I miss the old school days when it was all about gameplay and not graphics.

The advantage modern console myth is finally catching up to the realities of the market. They've made it worse by throwing gas on the fire burning its customers for failure of innovation as we have seen. The ownership of private property, sharing, and non-proprietary software is establishing a new pillar of the gaming industry. It's a small industry after all, and one that will outlast the old guard publishers, the internet dark age, and darwin gamers. The peasants will become enlightened and warm up to the PC Master Race. Long live indie! Gamers once the innocence wears off from buying with your own earned bucks you will sense a big FU slapping you in the face with most every launch masked as beta, never a complete package out of the box, and you find that you are the product with less exposure. The only lingering argument to be made is to come home to sit on the couch w/big screen after long day’s work of sitting on a work monitor all day. With Valve's new thing, as crazy as they are with their own OS and stuff, you can do both couch/big screen or hardcore Forklift MLGz PC G-Sync, everyone else Oculus Rift, therefore, argument for sake of argument. Heads will explode! Phil phishys will complain. Weaknesses are [url=http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/196769/why_super_metroids_hacking_.php]shared[/url] more profit is made. Cross platform mobile is innovated. Solved! Two things: 1.) The provider is rarely better than the clients he is able to attract. On the other hand, the creator often gets the customers she deserves. (We make games we want to play) 2.) Time is its own boss. You can’t manage that. Alignment does not guarantee success. One extra thing: + There is nothing new under the sun.

Developers are also held back. Look at all the amazing games coming out for PS4 and Xbox One. Pc has been able to run those games for years and was limited by the console until now. Now PC games will begin to look even more spectacular than console (give it a year or two) because Sony and M$ had the glorious idea of 86x coding. On behalf of PC gamers, I thank you. I thank you for shooting yourselves in the foot and speeding up the inevitable. Sincerely, PC elitist who owns both consoles

[quote]The best selling point for consoles has, for a while now been which exclusives it has[/quote]Who told you that? The 'best selling points' have always been its accessibility, apparent price, and higher sociability options.

[quote]so this is really a gaming specific problem, which means we'll get even less educated opinions than usual..[/quote]Let me just insult everyone in my thread before they even post. You're brilliant, you really are. You're so brilliant I don't even think I have to tell you why exclusives happen in the gaming industry, which at it's core, is a business. I mean, it's common sense, a brilliant man like yourself would know why a [i]business[/i] would have such practices. Surely a man of your intellect knows. But for the other not so smart people, I'll explain why you see things like exclusives in the gaming industry, and other industries as well. There are services out there like Netflix and HBO which have exclusive shows, that draw you into paying for that service. HBO is paid programming which offers shows you can't get anywhere else. Netflix also does this. If Netflix or HBO didn't offer you anything new or different or something you couldn't get anywhere else, what would be the incentive to pay for their service over any other service? This is the same thing you see in the gaming industry. Exclusives are incentives to buy one console over the other. I'm sure you knew that, being so brilliant. But you think this is an unfair business practice, that it's anti-consumer. Which is kind of weird, because if we were to go by your logic, any business trying to make money would be anti-consumer. By your logic charging for something is anti-consumer, making a profit is anti-consumer. Now, lets travel to a world where all games had to be available on all platforms. This is LAW in this other world. How do you think that would turn out for the gaming industry? Your vision of this world may be peachy, you buy a Nintendo and you can play anything you want on it. But we all know Nintendo can't handle some of the games that are being made today in our world. It's technically not possible for Nintendo's Wii-U to handle Killzone. So, how would game developers get around this? They are forced into making their game on each and every platform. Well, they would probably make their game compatible with the lowest common denominator, and then port it to the others. Imagine if Killzone had to be on the Ouya. How shitty of a game that would be. In this world, hardware manufacturing would be the money making. You make the cheapest hardware, you sell the most. Since there are no exclusives, right? It's boggling my mind just trying to figure out this bogus economy and what would happen if there was this ridiculous -blam!-ing rule of no exclusives. The industry would die in short. Over-saturation of the market would lead to a competitive industry that has no real pay-offs, which would result in a monopoly which is ultimately bad for consumers, and definitely restricts the growth of the industry. Why invest and make games better when the cost of doing so far outweighs benefits? The best games are often first party games. Why do you think that is?

Actually, exclusives are very much pro-consumer rather than anti-consumer. Btw, this whole "let's call anything we don't agree with 'anti-consumer'" bullshit is getting old. It's weak, and what gives you the right to pay a minimal amount for a product, but then think that you get to make design decisions about the product, or act like you personally sit on the Board of Directors for a company? It's arrogant, elitist, and does nothing to actually improve the quality of the product (despite what you claim). Get over yourself.

Nope you've got it all wrong. Exclusives create competition, without them it would be solely down to which system is better, this would result in one dominant console thus no competition which would create a lot more anti-consumer practices.

Ive always hated the fact that devs that have the capability of producing games for both consoles restrict themselves to only one. Theyre willingly cutting themselves off from over half the gaming population. Naughty Dog instantly comes to mind, they need to take a page out of Bungies book and ditch sony as soon as possible.

Without exclusives, what drive is there to buy more than one console? They drive sales, which drives competition, which demands innovation. Look at how Sony came out fighting this generation after such a dismal start.