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Why Game Exclusivity Deals Are Feeding the Hate
Parz writes "The recent announcement that the upcoming Ghostbusters game will be a timed PlayStation exclusive in the PAL territories — revealed a mere month before release — has set a nasty precedent which could have long-term repercussions for the industry. This Gameplayer article explores how this generation of gaming has spiraled into a tit-for-tat war on third-party exclusivity deals instigated by Sony and Microsoft, and the effect it is having on the psychology of the consumers. The Ghostbusters developers aren't pleased by Sony's deal, and the Guardian questions whether the game will be big enough to really affect console sales."
So when Sony does it, its bad; but when Microsoft does it, its ok?
Seems like the author is just pissed that he has to wait for the game.
Now you know how PS3 owners felt about Bioshock, Fallout 3 DLC, etc.
You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.
I can't count the number of people complaining about lost exclusives and lack of obtaining them... now that they are stepping up, the stories come out on how it's bad...
So you have a choice. Piss of fanboys by not getting exclusives or piss off fanboys for getting them and obtaining sales.
I'm not a fan of exclusiveness in itself. It limits consumer choice. Choice in the best hardware to run their favorite games in this case. I personally think there's only one company right now that can win that war, and it's not Sony.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Which console does Apple sell again?
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Which console does Apple sell again?
iPhone. More a hand held really...
Called the iPhone/Touch console. Check out Touch Arcade for more info.
How is this news? Consoles were built on exclusive content, all gamers know that. You can't play Sonic on SNES, you can't play Mario on Sega Genesis, etc.
Damn, if you aren't the most asinine, semantic-est motherfucker in the world.
Quick, say the first word that comes to mind when you read the following phrase: "System Seller"
You said Ghostbusters, didn't you?
That game is for the PS!???
Sweet, so it's a PS1 / PS2 / PS3 / PC / Pandora exclusive!
Going with the exclusive option as a developer means that you've got a well defined platform to target - major advantage. Trying to target multiple platforms is much harder but a mature game developer should have this covered. This story is pure corporate politics as it would appear the game's developers "Terminal Reality" are ready for multiple games consoles.
Yep - corporates playing pissing matches at the expense of the developers and the players.
You are seriously comparing a AAA console title to tower defense and labyrinth?
Not sure if I should take that as a compliment or a complaint. I am a writer after all. ;)
I played Ghostbuster on the Commodore 64 when it first came out. No way in heck will that ever be AAA title. :P
... this is not a big deal. It's a move game, why would anyone really care if it's multi platform or not? Unless it is the best game in the universe (doubtful).
Seriously from a developer standpoint unless Sony ponied up enough money for the dev team to never have to work again after completing the game, WHY would you ever go exclusive?
While most people generally find exclusives a bit annoying but acceptable, this particular case is different. This isn't Nintendo announcing the next Mario game--only on the Wii. This is a game that was already announced as being multiplatform and even had a release date, but suddenly it's become a timed exclusive for one system. The versions for the other systems will all be ready, but Sony's holding them back. Worse yet, this news is coming with almost no advance warning.
A big, shiny prize was dangled in front of people and it's been snatched away at the last second. Of course people are going to be angry.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
Yep, end result: several boxes containing similar hardware, representing lots of redundant effort that could have been spent much more productively. I usually pretty much support the free market, but this is a clear case where it doesn't work, and it should be fixed somehow.
Although it's difficult. For starters, the vendors have the bigger lobby at the moment and they wouldn't let any law get started. Any law regulating this would also have to deal with all kinds of technical crap. Vendor of platform A complains that game X isn't available for A even though it is for platform B. Vendor of B says: your platform isn't powerful enough / too different / brings an extra feature the game needs. Vendor A says: yes it is similar in power / a recompile with our headers and some minor tweaks suffices / just turn off the run-time dynamic anisotripic wizzymaps and it runs fine / the motiongloves were used in the game specifically to make it only run on B - it doesn't affect the gameplay at all. How are you going to draft a law dealing with this? Would you like to be the judge getting that kind of dogfood on his plate?
Sony is fronting the money to publish the game, even on COMPETING consoles. Yet people are giving them crap for it? What the hell? Comparing them to Microsoft nonetheless? When has Microsoft ever published a PS3 (or PS2) game?
Yeah, a phone where a tiny percentage of the userbase plays cheap flash games. If you want to make a decent point, use Nintendo who really is eating Sony and MS for lunch. Over 100M DSes and 50M Wiis sold. THat's more than 2x the PSP and almost as many as the 360 and PS3 combined for the Wii.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
It could well be argued that the PS1 was the run-away success that it was because of exclusive Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid franchises. For the PS2, it was much the same, except that it had then gained Grand Theft Auto (yes, I know it came to the PC and 360 later, but by then it really was a one horse race).
There were times when I looked at the games on the 360 and Wii, that weren't coming to the PS3, and wondered if I would be better off buying one of them instead of waiting for the PS3 to come down in price. It wasn't long though before Oblivion, Lost Planet, and Bioshock did actually come to the PS3, with the addition of features that trumped the original release.
Rather ironically, I felt that only one of them was actually worth the wait, in the end...
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
In a long time, if it will be PS3 eclusive in Europe only, I imagine everyone in Europe will just download the PC version from the nearest Torrent tracker and additional person will by a PS3 for that. Besides that I hardly imagine Ghostbusters being an AAA title to justify the buying of a console!
My condolescenses to the hard working developers who again got screwed up by another publisher after Activision had pulled a stunt on them earlier!
After his asinine last article he comes back and writes a worse one explaining that Sony users are just mad because Sony isn't doing well for them this generation.
Whoa, weren't these two whining articles written by an angry 360 fanboy, not a PS3 fanboy?
This business has been going on since MS started moneyhatting developers to get a quick leg up on Sony's (at the time) deep roster of 1st party games (remember MS buying Bungie after Halo was first shown on a Mac?). It's not time to suddenly say it's turned to madness just because Sony's moves angers a few MS fanboys.
Purchased exclusives worked great for MS this generation. Do you really expect Sony to stand by and take it? If MS fans are angry about purchased timed exclusives, they have only themselves to blame. They bought Rock Band 2 when it came out for 360 two months before PS3 de to a purchased timed exclusive. They bought BioShock in droves. They bought GTA4 for the 360 because the DLC was exclusive.
MS fans, you've reaped what you've sown, stop whining that you've been victimized.
And again slashdot, you shouldn't give this chump a forum to do his own hating.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I wonder when the console fanbois are going to wake up and smell the coffee. The point are the games, not the friggin box they play on. There is an opportunity for a generic, built with off the shelf components, console waiting to be developed. A mid-range video card, 500GB HD, Mid range chip, 2 to 4 GB of Ram, DVD drive and output for RCA/HMDI and standard VGA, universal(ie USB) control ports and a little bit of coding for GUI. And away we go, a generic console, which the game companies can code for easily, anyone could buy for around $200.00 USD, and even the most technologically challenged person could plug in and play. With something like this, we could see sane prices for games again, and have more content available by indie firms.
I played Ghostbuster on the Commodore 64 when it first came out. No way in heck will that ever be AAA title. :P
Also suspect there's no way in hell this new version will be as good.
I've been a huge fan pretty much since birth and all this makes me think is that I won't be buying the game. I picked the 360 because it had more games and content I wanted to play, I was quite looking forward to the game but a year+ delay just means by the time it has a 360 release I will be buying something else and the game will be long forgotten. It's a shame that Sony are trying to sell their console instead of selling a game, their first priority should be to making profit and making successful games, not to screw a game's sales over by desperately clawing at a failing console.
The PS3 is in a bad position and is clearly in last place this generation, but they do themselves no favours by stealing a game from the 360, because they will lose far more in game sales (and reviving a franchise) than they will gain from getting a handful of new consoles sold. I don't really care for the fanboy crap and was tempted to buy a PSP for some games recently, but when I see Sony's commitment is to selling hardware and not selling great games, I question if I should be giving them money.
I like muppets.
Who outside U.S. cannot Hate Hulu for saying "this movie can't be played in your region".
I am the Gateskeeper, are you the Wiimaster?
"To err is human, to mod Funny divine."
and most players ignore those totally as they already know 99.9999% recurring are total pants and so will ignore it.. Its a pity the game makers dont realise this sad fact.
I can see why the developers are pissed off at this one.
People who wanted it on the PC platform in the EU will have two choices now: wait until Sony dictates they can join the party or get a crafty copy from someone state-side over them there h'interwebs.
The PAL/NTSC thing makes bugger all differece to people playing game on a PC so unless there were some local specific changes planned for the game (translations being the only likely one and that isn't a major draw as most of Europe, for instance, can speak English as well as many "natural" English speakers I could mention - at least well enough to enjoy a game in the language).
Even those (the majority I would guess) that do wait may be lost sales. By the time it does come out for the PC their excitement may have diminished either because the game picked up so-so reviews or simply because the next big thing is just around the corner and they are thinking about that instead. There are also people like me - I now won't be buying unless I find a way of not buying it through a route that aids Sony (which means getting a 2nd hand copy later or finding one from another distribution territory without paying extra through delivery/duty fees). Of course Sony will blame these lost sales on piracy, not on the fuckwittery that is last-minute third-party exclusives...
None of this is anything Sony will give a shit about. OK so as the distributor they will lose some money from the lost sales too, not just the developers and publishers, but that will be less important to them than the marketing potential of having an exclusive title for a time.
A quick suggestion for those in affected areas: write a quick letter to you local daily papers about how a foreign company is being allowed to stop people playing a game unless it is on their platform. Over here the Mail and the Sun love this sort of shit. Let us see if we can't get some bad press for Sony out of this if nothing else. Drop a note to your local rabidly right-wing MPs (including, but not limited to ranty idiots like the BNP) too - people bother MPs for far more stupid things than this (and to be frank the right-wing nut-jobs aren't doing anything useful with their time otherwise anyway) and maybe any resulting noise will encourage the competition commission to peruse the situation (OK, the CC do have better things to be doing with their time so maybe not).
Man, that's really crap-looking. On the other hand, Ghostbusters for the Sega Genesis was pretty good.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Don't hate hulu for having a business model and offering it, hate those you want to access the cvontent from and don't consider you (otuside the US) to be a valid target market.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Then it doesn't bother me. I own all three consoles for their exclusive games.
When I see a SONY game only for the PS3 like Killzone 2 or God of War III I'm not shocked. Same with a third party title like Metal Gear Solid 4 that was built specifically for PS3 hardware and is long associated with the Playstation brand. Same with a title like Valkyria Chronicles that was a PS3 exclusive, because Japan is a PS3 loaded territory, and Sega expected the game to sell the most copies in Japan so they focused on one console.
When SONY got Virtua Fighter 5 as a PS3 exclusive they forced Sega to rush the port and it had no online play because Sega refused to allow the game online for fear that it would hurt arcade play in Japan. Microsoft then a year later asked Sega to port VF5 to the 360 and that version had online play because MS wanted the game played for the World Cyber Games. Sega didn't want the game online but Microsoft wouldn't back down. So now VF5 is online for the 360 with excellent net code.
Does making the Fallout 3 DLC only 360 exclusive make sense? No, Bethesda ought to be ashamed for this. Does REZ only being on the XBL marketplace make sense? No, the developer even said that they want to make the game for other platforms (PS3). Was Virtua Fighter 5 being a PS3 exclusive nonsensical? Yes and it was ported to the 360 eventually.
No, your sir, arew the one who fails. You disguise a link in a bunch of non humorous gibberish. In the hopes of tricking pewp0le into seeing a gaping anus. Yet /. puts the website address at the end of the link. Seriously you did not even use a service like tinyurl to diguise it. You get immediatly modded troll and the only people to see it are those browsing at -1.
Please go and submit your brain for scientific testing. Remove the top of your skull walk into the local ER and then tear the squishy mess from your head and hurl it at a nurse. Remeber to have a friend post picks so we can all enjoy it.
~The Mast3r~
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The amiga version was pretty good too, couldnt find a video of the first one but ghostbusters 2 had much better music...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv9mLcI8dlc
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Of those sales of the 360, how many were due to people buying a replacement unit for one that failed?
I know quite a few people who have done that...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
I will gladly trade ghostbusters to xbox, for Ace combat for PS3!
http://wwww.zerospeaks.com
Oh, exclusive games? That? Mostly a "who cares" these days. I think most serious gamers probably have 2 or 3 consoles since the used/refurb prices of them have now dropped enough to make it feasible to own at least two. For more casual gamers, they've made their choice of consoles, and they're probably happy. Exclusive games have been around since there's been game consoles. There's actually only a few exclusives these days, and they tend to break down based on the markets associated with each console.
When I say "nothing good" I'm referring to the article and the summary. The article itself is a mishmash of ideas, and the author never explores why exclusives happen (there's a lot of good articles out there already that explain it. I found some in literally 10 seconds of googling). But people might not be aware of this stuff, so perhaps that might be an interesting story, so of course, he doesn't do that story. He's confused about economics, because he refers to consumers as a resource, and he seems to think game exclusives are done for "fanboy" reasons, when the driving factor is economics (or the lack thereof). The bottom line is that game producers will go wherever the money is. If MS, Sony, or Nintendo have enough market to justify exclusives (or are willing to pay the producer), then exclusives will occur. If there is more money to be made by porting it to several consoles, then that will happen.
I'm really confused by the use of the word "hate" in this article. People will often use emotion to justify a reason to do something, but few companies become successful if they're driven by "hate". These decisions are driven by economics. There's a million games out there, I'm sure you'll find one to please you.
The other awful thing is the summary here on slashdot. They took an admitted incomprehensible article and somehow made it even worse.
After you read the summary and the article, it's one of those rare cases where you know less than when you started. This is something that everybody should be ashamed of.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Its bad when anybody does it (especially Microsoft)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Sorry, no. It wasn't. It was FIRST supposed to be a PC shooter with a Mac client as well. NO x-box. That was in fact the reason Halo was seriously delayed, because MS insisted they suddenly re-develop the product to fit on the X-box. A major task as the x-box even at its peak was seriously underpowered compared to a PC.
But hey, not only do you get the facts wrong. You also then still make excuses because Mac isn't that big a market and you handily skip the fact that the PC version was shipped ages later despite it being originally a PC project.
Fanboyism, you are doing it right.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It's not anything new, although it might be more wide spread now. Last generation, Microsoft paid quite a lot of money to make Shenmue 2 an X-box exclusive, which really shafted fans of the game. In both Europe and Japan, Shenmue was released for dreamcast and players could transfer save files over into the new title. In the US, you would have needed to buy a new console to continue the multi-part game, and even then sacrifice the ability to continue with the same materials you left off with.
Why must you be forced to distribute it in a certain geographic region (especially when you have to cover the cost of manufacturing, distribution, merchandising etc)? Would get us rapidly to the point where nothing would be created as the cost of being forced to distribute it (as it would be "illegal" not to do so...) in every territory that wanted it would be prohibitively expensive.
So you choose not to spend money on distributing a work in a given territory. In a free market, people in that territory could import the product from a territory where you do distribute it. Region locking is the only thing standing in the way of this. So how is it cost prohibitive not to region-lock a game, unless it's for Wii?
Using a PS3 or Xbox360 on an SDTV IMHO is just a waste
If you have 500 dollars/euros budgeted for a game console + controllers but not 1,100 dollars/euros for a console + controllers + a new TV, and not 1,800 dollars/euros for a set of PCs,[1] what should you buy?
(I am still waiting for the "Twilight Princess" to drop at least 50% for the Gamecube)
At GameStop, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess stayed near full price used for so long because a buffer overflow in its saved game loader was used as part of the Wii jailbreak throughout the Wii Menu 3.x series. Likewise, the used prices of Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Lumines were inflated while they were the primary vehicles for PSP jailbreaks. Nintendo finally defeated the Twilight Hack in Wii Menu 4.0, and the price for a used copy of Twilight Princess should start dropping once new Wii consoles ship with 4.0.
[1] PC multiplayer games more often follow the handheld model, with each player using a separate PC.
It's totally fair to hate on Hulu for arbitrary region restrictions.
Hulu is supported by advertisers. An advertiser in the United States doesn't want to advertise to German viewers if its product isn't ordinarily distributed outside North America.
Actually this console exits it name is PC.
All video game consoles can output composite video to a standard-definition television set. PCs can output VGA video to an HDTV, but most don't come with the special video card needed to output composite. One can use a $50 adapter to downsample VGA signals into composite or S-Video, but most people don't know they exist because Walmart*, Target, and Best Buy don't carry such adapters. One can use a computer monitor, but fitting four people around one 19" PC monitor is a lot more cramped than fitting four people around one 27" TV, and buying four separate PCs is a heck of a lot more expensive. And Anonymous Coward is right that unless you target the lowest common denominator (Intel GMA), you'll unwittingly make your game on depend OpenGL extensions that not all popular video cards can handle.
Nowadays you can go for a mid to low range processor and a 100$ graphics card
You need four mid to low range processors and four 100$ graphics cards unless you want to take turns.
Between that are 30-40$ games while console owners pay up to 70-80$
It becomes a $120-$160 game unless you want to take turns.
(It is even worse in Europe where companies constantly sell 1 USD for 1 EUR)
Compared to the United States, sales tax in Europe is higher and more often included in the MSRP.
What Sony did is just in bad taste, just because MS likes to pull crap like this doesn't mean that Sony has to sink to their level. And any fanboy who says that "MS had this coming" can cram it in their ass.
This is almost as annoying as retailer exclusive Audio tracks! Buy a CD from the wrong store and you've missed content! It's just a matter of time until this happens in games. I can see it now... "Buy call of duty 6 at walfart and get the big bad gun no one else can get, with darker Camo and a double exp for 3 months!". I thought they wanted to cut down on piracy...
Probably cause because they 'modded' and voided warrenty. But following that line of reason its still cheaper to buy and mod a replacement than buy 4 or 5 new release titles.
Those people are foolish then. MS will repair all consoles that failed due to RRoD.
Yeah, a phone where a tiny percentage of the userbase plays cheap flash games.
Since when did the iPhone run Flash?
... and then they built the supercollider.
Back in the days of Atari, when everything was timed according to the vsync, it made sense to distinguish PAL from NTSC gaming. Now, it all goes through an engine that can render at any variable FPS.
Is a PAL PS3 and different from an NTSC PS3 these days? It seems like it should merely be a firmware setting and a different solder connection.