Yopaz said:
No, I am arguing compatibility.LOok b ack at my argument. I said that we can't make glass bottles hold fluoric acid just because we think it should. Is compatibility really semantics now?
And I'm arguing compatibility is nowhere near as big an issue as you're making out. As I said, most bottles were changed to something capable of holding fluoric acid and water.
So it is not? OK then. Money needs to be spent on making it work on a different system. Why would one company spend money to give up their competitive edge?
No joke. Really? Funnily enough, money needs to be spent making it work on the primary system. Portability isn't as big an issue, again, as you're making it out to be. I'm also not asking for Sony to pay someone to make a game for Microsoft, so I'm not sure where the second half of your argument comes into this.
Yes, because identical hardware can only run the ame software if they also have the same OS and drivers. Case in point, Windows, Mac, Linux.
Not what you were originally headed towards, as shown later where you again bring up different hardware as a major issue. So, again, don't look at me for using that.
If you want it to work perfectly you do it for one system and you won't have to make compromises. Look at PC games ported from consoles vs games made exclusively for PC and you'll see the difference.
If you want it to work perfectly even on one system you work for 10 years on the damned thing and develop a specialised engine worth a fortune. Funnily enough, very few people do that at all. Most ports I've played really don't play that much worse on the PC than console, the biggest issue has often just been that the textures are low quality thanks to not upgrading for PC, rather than poor performance. The main ones you see that from are Ubisoft - basically known to hate PC gamers and think they're all pirates - and the occasional Japanese developer like fromSoft who have a high focus on the Japanese market, primarily focusing their efforts on handhelds and consoles.
In those cases the manufacturer of the console also pays for the development to happen so without such insentives the game might not be made at all. Like with Bayonetta 2.
In some of those cases anyway. And, as a part of them paying, is a "You shall not port this to other platforms" agreement. That's the part I'm against. Pay them to make a game for your platform - cool. With the money they've earned, their choice to develop for multiplat later if they want.
The bigger the game, the more effort is required. Small games are easier to port.
Small devs don't always mean small games, just as big devs don't always mean big games. Both manage to get ported just fine.
So if the game wouldn't have been made without you'd rather see the game not be developed? Makes sense, I wish I never could have played games like Dead Rising, Mario, or Uncharted because they refuse to release it on PC.
Welcome to anti-competition laws in general. This also isn't about console to PC. This is about exclusive purchases in general.
They are exclusives, they sold. They all crossed the 1 million mark so they didn't sell poorly, they just weren't massive successes (there's a middle ground between you know). You said no-one cared about the exclusives, this proves that millions did.
Better get you a line to some of those AAA companies who say 1 million is a failure then. Game budgets are excessive, and a million copies is only about $30 mil max going to everyone who made the game, and their publisher, if we assume that Sony and MS are directly their publisher. By modern game budgets, that's breaking even. Its not a failure, but you can't say it sold well. And yes, there is a difference between selling fantastically, selling well, selling poorly, and failing to recoup production costs. I wonder if you realise that, since apparently everything that recoups its production costs sold well.
I also never said people don't care about exclusives - the very fact people would prefer them on other platforms shows they do. I said exclusives aren't enough to sustain a console. Which you've done nothing to disprove. Again, combine all those sales, most of which will have already owned the console at the time of purchasing one of those games, and you still have an utter flop of a console, while the Xbox One has sold far more than those exclusives off its own merits.
No, I would prefer if you didn't falsely insert your own interpretation of what I said thank you.
You said they don't sell impressively, yet you're saying these not-so-impressive game sales are the reason for several times higher console sales. If they didn't sell impressively [Aka; sold poorly. Again, its not saying that they failed, its saying they didn't impress], they're not going to cause impressive console sales, or sustainable ones either. Conveniently, we ignore this though, because of course we do.
Which proves that no company will ever fail again., got it.
You know, when you deliberately misinterpret things just for the sake of arguing, its starts to seem like you're throwing in the towel. Address the point, or concede it. Don't throw strawmen around and expect that it makes you look smart.
We've not seen 10 generations of console gaming...
See above. Pretty clear it meant 10 years. Picking on typoes, again, doesn't help your point.
Funny that Microsoft has also been losing money on their Xbox branch for a long time.
There is a difference between losing money on, and utterly collapsing. Sega released 5 consoles. Those consoles were only available for 2 years each. MS has released 3 consoles. The first was available for something around 6 years, the second around 8 or more, and this one is still going.
Yes, they lost money on their first two entries into the console market. Funny that. That tends to be how entering a new market goes. Sega had been in that market for a long time, and over a decade they didn't just lose money, their very brand collapsed. There is a world of difference between the two.
I'd recommend studying business. A lot of it is common sense, but it does point out all the difficulties and considerations that go into business decisions. MS wouldn't have pulled out without exclusives. They wouldn't have sold a ton fewer consoles without exclusives, and even if they had, they wouldn't have pulled out that very instant. They know their brand is stronger than that, and if they were to introduce an improved product that consumers would return to them. And lo and behold, after removing all the stuff people disliked about the Xbox One reveal, people did indeed return - and not solely because of exclusives.
Citation needed. The last console generation lasted longer than their venture into mobile phones.
Citation needed for what?
The fact it wouldn't have been a complete failed generation? Well, looking at the number of Xboxes sold, compared to number of your exclusives sold, its pretty clear that exclusives made up a small part of the total sales. Without exclusives, the generation would not have utterly failed.
The fact that its a complicated decision as to whether to withdraw or not? As I said, go study business.
The fact that MS wouldn't have pulled out after one failed attempt? I guess "Citation needed" for the idea that they would have as well. We're making predictions. I'm backing mine up, you're saying "A failure means the end because it does". Their phones also underwent numerous iterations and lasted several generations before failing. Just because the product lifecycle of a phone is shorter than that of a console doesn't mean you can say a console would fail in the same amount of time.
It was a hypothetical situation, not a realistic prediction, but you know, keep taking things out of context.
Its a hypothetical scenario you've based your entire premise on. The idea that exclusives are needed has been based on this idea that console manufacturers would even try to compete were exclusives not a thing. That's a ridiculous hypothetical.
No, they do not use the same OS, they use a specialized OS based on Windows 10, which is different from the one on PS4, but similar enough to the PC one that porting is a bit easier, they still need to take hardware differences into consideration. Also Xbox one exclusives ported to Windows 10 don't really work that well, there's a lot of microstuttering and glitches. So this is not semantics. Also the fact that software can be added afterwards is a weakness in your argument that should be their competitive edge. It is temporary.
That's partially true. In all honesty, its a several layer system with multiple OSs it runs. At launch it was Windows 8 on one of them, stated as virtually indistinguishable in code from the PC operating system, with programs able to simply be built for either of them. With Windows 10, I haven't looked as much into it, however the introduction of Universal Windows Apps and MSs general stance of making it easy as possible to port between all their platforms tells me there probably isn't a ton of difference at the OS level. And yes, the PS4 is a different beast. By and large, again, they want to keep their systems similar there though, because you want to appeal to the industry and get multiplats on your platform, rather than locking them away. I'm sure its not a simple press of a button, or selection for build type in a game engine menu, for the larger games - but its also not so impossibly expensive and difficult as to be unfeasible.
So them paying for software and hardware to be exclusive is distinct from developing software (category - games) to be developed? Makes perfect sense.
You're saying that BMW putting a GPS in their car is on the same level as them paying or making Goodyear Tires sign a contract that says their tires can only be put on BMWs. There's a world of difference. I really am starting to think you're just ignoring everything that's said.
Welcome to exclusives too. They work... For the first week or two after their release. They're the shortest term competition you can talk about, if you look at sales trends.
Fair enough, but it proves that differences like these are temporary. Microsoft allowed mod support on Xbox One and Sony followed suit. That didn't take long.
EVERY difference is temporary. Or what, does having Running Wild on the PS1 still provide an advantage to Sony?
Lets not pretend that this doesn't apply to exclusives too. Its all a short term thing, and relies on the first mover advantage for new innovations to truly pull people over to you. The following platform competes by offering a more polished version that is differentiated from the first in its target audience, learning from the mistakes of the first mover, to capture some market share as well. See VR.
Yes, this does mean you've got to actually keep doing new things - much like with exclusives you've got to keep making new games. Wow, what a concept. You can't just make a box and earn a fortune doing nothing for a decade. Who'da thought?
And hey, you know what? Make yourself some new innovation, like the WiiU with its gamepad [The success thereof is irrelevant for this comment] also gives you a reason to actually have exclusive games. They do things on your platform that can't be done on another. Two birds with one stone - its why I don't have the issue with 3DS exclusives, or some of the WiiU's. They make use of the unique hardware of their platform to offer things that couldn't be done on other platforms. Great. That's good. But there's got to be a significant consumer reason that they aren't available elsewhere.
I also said two posts ago that all such analogies are faulty. You kept on trying to make them work. They don't, they are faulty, you have made several.
This is, as I said, the pot calling the kettle black. Despite saying they are all faulty, you keep trying to make them yourself.
I'm saying that Microsoft wouldn't have an edge. They botched their reputation and the only feature was Kinect which was a requirement in the start that drove up the cost of the system and delayed wordlwide launch because of language settings. Which could lead to Microsoft dropping out, I didn't say it would destroy the console market.
They damaged their reputation. They still have a lot of brand loyalty, and their backstep fixed things for a lot of people. I'd also need some citation for it leading to MS dropping out. They had a rocky launch. Quite obviously, they succeeded, because they do have an edge for a certain niche of their audience. It isn't just exclusives. Hell, I pointed one out at the start; the reversal of the PS3 era Xbox Gold vs PS Live pricing. MS made theirs free, PS put a price tag on theirs. Boom, competition point, no exclusives required. Edges don't only exist in the form of exclusive games.
But you are saying they should be removed. The PS2, PS3 and the 3DS show us the importance of games though.
And all platforms would still have games. People would have a reason to get a console - the biggest thing - and the fact that if one of them fucked up the other would get more sales would act to keep each of them in check. Competition still exists. In fact, its closer to perfect competition than the present monopolistic competition - which is, funnily enough, a good thing. And before you go telling me its not a monopoly - again, look up the actual meanings of these things, and study a bit of business/economics.
Can be changed if it turns out to be a problem. Install time is only a problem the first time.
Install time is a problem every time you get a game. As for "Can be changed", this is what registered designs are there to protect against. Microsoft cannot simply copy Sony's UI, or anything like that. Its actually illegal. They CAN improve their own interface though. Are you saying this is a bad thing?
Price is not a permanent feature.
It doesn't need to be. Exclusives aren't either.
Minimal difference, can be changed with hardware updates.
Minimal difference for you, but for some its actually pretty damn important. That's the whole thing about going for slightly different markets. As for changing with hardware updates - yes, expensive hardware updates several years later, with high R&D costs. Otherwise the day after the Xbox One was released we'd have had the update. Oh wait, we didn't, and in the 3 years since, anyone who wanted the smaller console because they had limited space [A fair number of people, especially if you look outside America], has gone Sony. Correct me if I'm wrong, but 3 years of sales and competition is a lot more than Ryse managed to get for the Xbox One.
Can be changed with hardware alterations and software alterations.
See above. It lasts longer than an exclusive.
I would stick with PC gaming. PS4 is the best system for me for its JRPGs, but if they were released everywhere then I would not bother to bring another device into my house to play the things my important work tool already does better. For most it would be a popularity's vote though. You go with what your friends get to play with them. This generation that would be the PS4 since that is the console selling the most.
Let me quote myself again;
And if you say neither, you'd just go PC - that's great, but for most people its more than exclusives keeping them on consoles. Friends having consoles, brand loyalty, and other factors present barriers to exit for choosing a console over a PC.
I guess this just show's your ignoring things on purpose. And as you said - its a popularity vote. Even with exclusives, people go for the platform their friends are on, rather than the one that necessarily has the exclusives they want. Some who are reasonably wealthy go for both. But hey, that's not a factor I'm sure. Exclusives are the only thing that matters.
And yes, the PS4 is the one selling more, precisely because its the popular option this gen, and MS having exclusives has done nothing to change that.
Another food analogy, didn't you complain about me for using those two posts in a row? They offer some different products.
And MS and Sony offer some different products, that aren't exclusives. Funny that.
Same with Coke and Pepsi.
I'm talking exclusively about the Coke product and Pepsi product, not the companies. They compete just fine, despite being almost identical products - far more similar than the Xbox and Playstation.
You've managed to cram in two food analogies using companies selling different products to compare two companies selling essentially the same product.
I've taken real world examples of companies in a very similar situation to Microsoft and Sony, and shown how they manage to compete just fine without exclusives. You can say they offer different products, honestly those products are far more similar than the PS4 and Xbox One even without exclusives. You also ignore the actual point of a statement to comment on a strawman you've come up with, or to pick on grammar. Its really seeming a lot like you don't actually have any response to the fact that they can compete fine without exclusives, have shifted from your original premise, and are starting to just say that you're right, because you are, rather than offering anything substantial to back that up.
Honestly, address the point in an argument, rather than a strawman or semantics, don't just ignore entire sections because you can't address them, and don't rely on fear mongering as your whole argument, or, if I'm going to take words out of your mouth, faulty phone analogies. Also, figure out your actual stance. Originally it was that exclusives are the only form of competition between MS and Sony, and thus are necessary for each to keep the other in check. That's not the case, and now we're arguing that Exclusives should exist because... Why exactly? Without that overarching argument, your posts have lost focus, and seem to just be saying "You're wrong because I'm right", rather than making any point about "This is why we need exclusives".
