Most of the article is on AAA development as a whole but I found it interesting the comments about consoles in general.
If you stopped doing exclusives then there wouldn’t be a “war”. Consumers can get the hardware they think will work for them and get to play everything.
That is not how their business model works. The consoles themselves are sold almost at cost of production or at a loss. The money for Microsoft, Nintendo, Microsoft comes from those exclusives and live service subscriptions. They want to maximize the amount of their hardware in homes and then make the money on selling the thing that actually makes them useful.
Growing costs of hardware components and relatively mild gen-on-gen improvements in visual quality are making the classical console business model (subsidized hardware used to drive game sales via exclusiveles) obsolete.
One major argument for consoles is still that there is a single unified platform that gives better bang-for-buck than PC of the same price, and that studios can dev and optimize their games on more easily.
That’s definitely true. But I would argue every additional “unit” of graphical improvement is becoming more and more expensive to the point where the relative benefits associated with a single unified platform are not as impactful as they once were.
Then when will Sony stop paying studios to not port their game to platforms other than PlayStation, regardless of time gate? This has been Sony’s playbook since the beginning of their gaming venture, I don’t see them stopping any time soon. Its entirely how they gained such a big market share and keep it. People buy consoles because of the exclusive games.
Nobody would be buying a Switch if I could buy Nintendo games on literally any other console. They would be guaranteed to be running way better than they do on Switch.
I do see them stopping soon. Those deals are benefiting basically no one anymore. Partners like Square Enix are doing way better by putting their games on PC without an exclusivity period. Sony’s not growing their console business over the previous generation, even when their competition has been destroyed. At some point it’s just money down the drain.
Its interesting we are seeing the same comments by both playstation and micosoft circles.
