Exclusives. Seemingly everyone's favourite topic, especially lately. Whether it's Sony executives hinting that times are changing or Xbox executives outright telling us that times are changing the topic is arguably at its fever pitch. But what is an exclusive in 2024, and how much do they matter in the current landscape?

Exclusive's have forever been the driving force behind consoles. You either wanted a Sega console for Sonic or a Nintendo for Mario. There were other reasons outside of the games, but those were the main reasons. In modern gaming it's always felt the same, but different at the same time. We live (this writer thinks sadly) in an era where most people's game libraries are no longer sitting on their shelf, but attached to their online profile.

In the 90s if you had enough of Sega and wanted to jump to Nintendo you could simply box your stuff up, walk into a store and trade all that Sega stuff for store credit to put towards your new Nintendo console. For the vast majority of people in 2024 that is no longer the case. Want to leave Xbox and become a PlayStation gamer? You can but your library is gone then. That's a tough pill to swallow for some if they've invested thousands of dollars in their library. For that reason alone many are likely to stick with the brand they already have even if they aren't happy.

Then there's the subscription services, how good the hardware is and accessories, where your friends play just to name a few other reasons. Times have definitely changed to where exclusives aren't the ONLY reason to own a console, but is it still the most important reason? And how does this all affect exclusives going forward?

I personally have always said exclusives matter. Would it be bad if everyone could play every game anywhere they wanted? No that would be great for consumers. But as a business model I always believed exclusives matter and Xbox was the prime example. The Xbox One failed for a variety of reasons, but arguably the biggest reason was making their games day 1 on PC. Of course many will also point to the "always online" problem (kinda funny looking back now huh?) or the focus on an entertainment system rather than a gaming console, but games not being fully exclusive is definitely up there. PlayStation and Nintendo have flourished, at least in terms of hardware sales, while sticking to the exclusive model. Those "killer apps" are what bring people to the platforms.

The problem with that thinking in 2024 many will argue, is the killer apps are no longer the exclusive games. Sure games like God Of War and Starfield move the needle a bit, but those killers apps are now games like Fortnite, Call Of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. And it is a valid point, but people are still flocking to PlayStation over Xbox despite Xbox having those games. Hell Xbox owns arguably 2 of the top 5 most popular franchises in gaming today. That alone should move major units if they leveraged it right, but they seem to care more about profits (as any company should and Game Pass, which I've always thought the best way to sell Game Pass subs to people was to sell Xbox consoles. But that's a story for another day.

So let's get back to that profit point here. In theory you sell your games to more people and you make more money. Seems simple enough right? Xbox certainly seems to think so and PlayStation is beginning to lean that way more and more. Helldivers 2, a PlayStation published game launched in February for both PlayStation & PC and it's been possibly Sony's most popular release in quite some time outside of their established IPs. How much of that success can be attributed to PC? Sales were roughly 50/50 between the platform so you'd think good. But how many PlayStation's could they have sold? How many more copies on PlayStation, the platform where they'd get 100% of the profits instead of 70% did they lose out on? It's an interesting question and one we will never know the answer to.

And perhaps the biggest reason for the shift to going more multi-platform and the reason everyone is talking about profits, is the cost of these games. Games these days cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Who remembers the “platinum hits” that companies used to put out during the 360/PS3 era? Publishers would plaster that on cases to proclaim with pride they sold a million copies of their game. I vividly remember Saints Row had one, I quite literally still have it in my collection. Back then it was a huge success to sell a million copies. Today? A new Saints Row came out recently, sold a million copies and it was such a failure for only selling a million copies that the studio was shut down. With inflated costs, comes pressure to sell more, and what better way to sell more copies of a game than to put it on more platforms.

I still think exclusives are the way to go long term for these platforms. Maybe I’m just so archaic in my thinking and I need to get with the times. No one really knows at this point. So far were in the proof of concept phase of this crazed world, though Xbox certainly has me even more skeptical of it.

The next year will be a very interesting year in gaming. Nintendo will likely launch the Switch 2 and continue to make exclusive games. Will it sell as well as the original Switch with the same business model? Will Xbox continue to push the envelope and sell more games on PlayStation? Will PlayStation release more day 1 PC games? How will all of these platforms fair with their current plans. Only time will tell,but it will be very very interesting to watch it all play out.