Are console/system exclusives an outdated concept? Why are video games the only media that require a specific device to play? It's not like if you want to watch a certain movie, you have to go "shit, can't watch this one on the panasonic, gotta switch to my sony player." Should there be a universal format for all games? I mean, besides the bantz do any of you really care how you play a game, so long as it's a good game? If you understand how games are made and can explain why this is a stupid idea then please do, I'm not claiming to know my shit.
God, SMT's art is so fucking awful
>>321546293
Fucking end yourself pham
PC is the universal format but it lost its popularity with the rise of internet piracy. Just look at the late 90s early 2000s. Back then we didnt have console ports to PC, we had PC ports to console.
>>321546185
Unlike in other media, the hardware can have an impact on the growth of video games as a whole, although the only concrete example of this is recent Nintendo hardware. The innovative control scheme guarantees a unique experience. Meanwhile Xbox and PlayStation have not innovated in an significant way since their first generations. This is very subjective, as one of the major things I look for in a game in individuality, which is very easy to find on Nintendo consoles.
>>321546185
>Are console/system exclusives an outdated concept?
If we didn't have console exclusives than chances are most exclusives that are around right now would not exist.
Competition between companies is a good thing for consumers. Companies like Sony are pushed extra hard to fund/come out with something like Bloodborn for the sake of console sales.
>>321546695
But does anyone see the wii controls as anything other than a gimmick at this point? There are probably a few games that benefited from them, but unless a fundamental shift in how we play games occurs, a controller is good enough. Some innovations never really needed to occur. Maybe a bad analogy, but between a 3D TV and a regular tv, the technology doesn't really matter if the show is shit.
>>321547249
I honestly don't mind waggle, and I think there were some really cool games on the wii that probably wouldn't have existed or would have generic shit had the wii not had unique systems.
A good example is ZombiU. On the WiiU it had a unique feel to it because it was one of the first games to properly utilize the touch pad. Not the best game but it had that going for it. Now with Zombi being rereleased on other consoles, it is just a generic shitty zombie game with no appeal.
This
Because computer software is highly dependent on the hardware it is being run on, what instruction set it supports, etc.
To built "universal" gaming machines you would need a system architecture standard that everyone adheres to. That would be the IBM PC Compatible standard, but by the time that came to be consoles had already been around for quite a while out of necessity, and none of the console manufacturers are about to give up on a market that is willing to give them money, so here we are.
>>321546920
not buying it. why is competition between developers not enough to drive progress? sure sony can throw its money at certain projects they think will move units, which could get those projects the backing they need, but a split market cuts potential sales down by a lot.
Games are software. They require specific environments to run properly.
Because of that, companies like Nintendo needed their own hardware for the software they developed, and since they are a company, they need to make money by selling both and also controlling what they sell.
Nowadays, games are a service, and companies like Sony, Microsoft, Valve and Nintendo need to maintain their income by selling stuff that makes money. In Sony's case, they are actually trying to get a good reputation by also publishing games on PC (Helldivers, Kojima's new game). That is good because:
1. People who only play on PC will buy them;
2. People who only play on PS4 will buy them;
3. Idorts will have a choice or double dip.
This increases the trust in Playstation's brand and all that stuff. Microsoft is also trying to do this, but apparently they are not on a good relationship with Valve for that. Only Nintendo refuses to do that, but that's because they are more traditional.
>>321546531
Well, I don't think PC is that universal. As we all know, most games are made to run on Windows. And even if they run on Linux, commercial games hide their source code for obvious reasons and are prone to issues depending on your hardware or OS.
The only way a game can be "universal" is by being open source, I think.
>>321546920
You could still have the competition without limiting your game to only one platform. Exclusivity doesn't promote making your platform better, it promotes locking other platforms out of playing your games. I don't understand how consumers benefit at all from this as all it does is limit our choice of platform and lock games down technically.
Also bloodborne is a really bad example since it would have been another game like demon's souls that most people overlooked if it hadn't been for the other souls games going multiplat.
Sony didn't have to push or work extra hard for anything, they just moneyhatted a new souls game while another souls game was handed down to a B team. Dark souls 2 turned out kind of stale, bloodborne sold less than either of the multiplat souls and the only way to play bloodborne is with a 30fps cap and bad loading times. In the end how did consumers win at all?
>>321548416
This is backwards. You don't build your system around the game, you build the game around the system you made. There's no technical limitations keeping any company from just making all their games for Windows and/or Linux instead of having to design, manufacture, and market a console to do it.
As Nintendo said, software sells hardware. That is the one and only reason for it, they make software for their device and their device only because they want you to buy said device. There's no "need" behind the existence of the device other than the desire to make money, and they certainly didn't need that one specific device to be able to make the games they've made, if all they truly wanted was to just make games.
>>321549097
Yes, software sells hardware, but the companies need to upgrade their pre-made boxes every once in a few years because consumers want new technologies. And these three companies also sell hardware and they need to sell them.
Would it be better if they all had their own stores for PC like Steam? Maybe. It would be great, at first, but it's obvious that they would want more money by making dedicated hardware (like Valve is doing right now, kind of).
Dedicated hardware allows them to have more control over everything, and also makes more money, so it's understandable that development tends to branch out like that.
>>321549531
>like Valve is doing right now, kind of
It's just a branding, it's not even remotely comparable to making a console which is actually a unique design and therefore incompatible with pretty much everything.
Also I'd say them making more money out of consoles is debatable. There's millions of potentially lost sales on every title they publish exclusively on their own device due to not having access to the entire gaming consumer base.
Consoles as a whole are increasingly outdated.
>>321548884
Look at it this way.
You're a game company.
You have a choice to fund/publish a game that if it sells well, you'll get the profit from that game.
Or you can fund/publish a game that will not only get you profits from the game itself, but get you money from selling hardware.
>>321550174
They will never have access to the entire gaming consumer base. They are different groups of people.
Battlefront, for example, sold more on PS4 than on PC and Xbone combined. Call of Duty games also tend to sell more on the more popular consoles because a very large number of people like to play on consoles, and that is OK. It's already a cultural thing, and a demographic large enough to warrant R&D, marketing and the logistics for the consoles.
Also, don't forget that it's not only the hardware they sell, but the subscription costs, the DRM, the publisher deals (after all, knowing which console sold more allows for more flexibility in that) and a lot of other stuff.
Sony already has a dedicated division for console hardware, and their own fans, so it makes sense to prioritize development for their own walled garden. I agree with you, though, in that it would be great to make it available for PC, and that's exactly what they are doing (not with big titles, though).
