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How Exclusive Will Exclusive Games Be?
Gamasutra's regular 'Analyze This' column (which gets answers to topical questions from industry analysts) today ponders the exclusivity of next-gen games. With the costs of developing a AAA title ever on the rise, the article seeks out the answer to whether truly exclusive titles (games that are only released on one platform) are a thing of the past. "I feel title exclusivity for [third-party] developers is less important then title differentiation. All three consoles have strengths, and I would advise [developers] to clearly develop with the console in mind, and I would stress differentiation within their titles. This clearly poses a problem for smaller, more financially strapped developers who don't have the budget to develop what is in essence three separate games. - Ben Bajarin, Creative Strategies"
First party games are those games that are developed by the maker of the console. Halo, Mario, Zelda, Project Gotham Racing, etc. They are not going anywhere unless the console maker no longer makes consoles. This is why you don't see Mario games being developed for the PS3.
Paid exclusives means that a publisher paid money for the title to be exclusive. Either for a limited period of time or forever.
Default exclusives occur because it costs money to port games to other consoles. When a console has the majority of the market, some game developers will make a title for just that console. Think of the NES, Playstation and Playstation 2. Many game developers would just develop for the major console and ignore the rest. This is unlikely to happen this time because of the Xbox 360's weakness in Japan, PS3's cost and Nintendo's recent history of poor 3rd party game sales.
I would imagine the decision-making process is a bit more complicated than simply looking at current and forecast market shares of the consoles. Most consumers have a limited budget to buy games- say 6 per year. If there are 10 amazing games coming out Wii and 2 for the PS3, then I can imagine a scenario where my chances of securing a PS3 owner would be better than for a Wii owner.
Gamers would choose from the best games available for their platform, and my chances for being in the consideration set for an individual gamer would be higher for the PS3 than the Wii. I would then multiply my probabilities for being in the consideration set for an individual gamer on each console times the number of consoles sold to come up with an estimate of sales.
There's a reason some developers are Mac exclusive, and I think it's based on the above logic.