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Microsoft: In the Toughest Spot To Win the Core Gamer!

Just like there are many types of gamer, not just core and casual, there are many types of exclusives (first party, third party, downloadable, console/PC). Moving goalposts in either direction does absolutely nothing but serve your own subjective tastes. Saying "Yes, but that was released on PC" means absolutely nothing to the millions that don't game on the PC. It's a personal limitation that PC gamers can overcome, and thus it's a solid argument for why 360 might be a poor choice for them, but it doesn't say anything about the system to individuals that favour not gaming on a PC.

Similarly saying "Downloadables don't count, Kinect games don't count" is again just wiping away things that don't appeal to you on the same level as a retail title, despite the fact that they do to millions of others. Thus the appeal of any console is down to individual taste, so writing lists with a variety of factors that cut out games people love is a pointless exercise. It might prove a point about why you don't like a system, but not why the system is weak as a whole.


Great post.
 
Indeed, so why not count those games? I personally don't care much about those exclusives since I own all (big) systems and will continue to do so, but aren't you just invalidating your point now?

Because then he can't make the point that "Microsoft has lol no games". Somehow they managed to sell 5 million copies of Minecraft 360 though. I guess everyone in the world doesn't supplement their consoles with gaming PCs, huh?
 
This is a great example of how many people implicitly narrow discussion of "the market" down to "Playstation 3 and Xbox 360."

And it is very much implicit, as it's very rarely said out loud.

I dunno there's been a few people in this thread who have straight up said PC doesn't count. I understand if they're talking about a platform where a game was ported but it pretty clearly is not the same game on any level, like a 360 game being ported to ios, but ignoring a platform where the versions of the game are actually a ton better is baffling to me.
 
Ahah. But no.
GTA 3 was a big exclusive for the ps2, period.
Did people buy a pc for that? No, they bought a ps2.
The same way people bought a 360 for Gears even though we had a late port. And so on.
We're not talking about people owning any kind of gaming platform that wisely chooses where to play the games, knowing that maybe some games are timed exclusives.
Or are we?

But they don't.
It doesn't matter if you and I can play those games on the pc. People buy them on the 360.
Just like other games. It's part of the strenght of the platform.
And since this thread is about that streght...

what the hell, now people don't even know what an exclusive means? jesus.
 
Because then he can't make the point that "Microsoft has lol no games". Somehow they managed to sell 5 million copies of Minecraft 360 though. I guess everyone in the world doesn't supplement their consoles with gaming PCs, huh?

I'm plus +1 on Minecraft on Xbox 360 even though I have a monster PC and could run the mods on PC with ease. Got it so my kids and I could play together.
 
But they don't.

It doesn't matter if you and I can play those games on the pc. People buy them on the 360.

Just like other games. It's part of the strenght of the platform.

And since this thread is about that streght...


So now we define an exclusive as a game that sells more on your gaming platform compared to other platforms?

People keep mentioning XBLA "exclusive" games as some kind of advantage but reality is that there is no advantage when everyone can play that game on a platform everyone has.
 
I dunno there's been a few people in this thread who have straight up said PC doesn't count. I understand if they're talking about a platform where a game was ported but it pretty clearly is not the same game on any level, like a 360 game being ported to ios, but ignoring a platform where the versions of the game are actually a ton better is baffling to me.

they ignore it because of numbers: more people have a ps3 or 360 than a PC for gaming.
 
what the hell, now people don't even know what an exclusive means? jesus.

What do you try so hard not to understand.

I perfectly know what an exclusive is.

But we're not talking about that. See the many post that actually get the point.

Minecraft is on pc, and it's better than the xbla version. Go tell that to 5 million people who bought the game.

They don't care. Same goes for all the games that can be played on the pc. They're still effectively a 360 exclusive, since those games are nowhere to be find on the ps3, wii, 3ds, Vita, etc.

See Opiate post if you still can't grasp the logic behind this line of reasoning (which has nothing to do with the meaning of "exclusive").
 
they ignore it because of numbers: more people have a ps3 or 360 than a PC for gaming.

This is patently false. PC Gaming revenue dwarfs both the PS3 and 360 in revenue.

Regarding the ongoing discussion, I agree with both sides. Discounting Minecraft as a valuable addition to the 360 software library is wrong. Obviously, it is. So, for that matter, is Call of Duty, despite the fact that the game is on every system under the sun.

So I agree that a game isn't unimportant simply because it's not an exclusive. The number of people who have every single system and therefore only really value exclusives for each system are vanishingly small.

On the flipside, there are people trying to refer to games as "console exclusives" when what you really mean is "it's not on PS3." In this day and age, that's such a narrow field of view as to largely be irrelevant and strikes me as a deliberate attempt to make things sound better than they actually are. Minecraft can simultaneously be a multiplatform title and also be very important to the value of an Xbox.
 
I'm plus +1 on Minecraft on Xbox 360 even though I have a monster PC and could run the mods on PC with ease. Got it so my kids and I could play together.

Splitscreen was definitely the driving force behind the popularity of it in my household. Was a great babysitter this past summer, Fall, and now Winter.
 
Cite? I seriously doubt this, especially given China.

Correct, he's probably ignoring emerging markets. And also ignoring F2P and Facebook games, which generate an enormous amount of revenue.

If we only talk about the US/EU, and then only about "traditional" games you buy for 30-60 dollars up front, then yes, he is correct. If we step outside that bubble and just talk about gaming in general, then the PC is a much larger market than either the 360 or the PS3.
 
What do you try so hard not to understand.

I perfectly know what an exclusive is.

But we're not talking about that. See the many post that actually get the point.

Minecraft is on pc, and it's better than the xbla version. Go tell that to 5 million people who bought the game.

They don't care. Same goes for all the games that can be played on the pc. They're still effectively a 360 exclusive, since those games are nowhere to be find on the ps3, wii, 3ds, Vita, etc.

See Opiate post if you still can't grasp the logic behind this line of reasoning (which has nothing to do with the meaning of "exclusive").
Use plus then, a plus for the 360 since it's in no way an exclusive.
 
Correct, he's probably ignoring emerging markets. And also ignoring F2P and Facebook games, which generate an enormous amount of revenue.

If we only talk about the US/EU, and then only about "traditional" games you buy for 30-60 dollars up front, then yes, he is correct. If we step outside that bubble and just talk about gaming in general, then the PC is a much larger market than either the 360 or the PS3.

Which is funny since so many people claim they're going to go PC-only if consoles keep introducing more F2P and casual experiences, forgetting that PC is where they mostly exist. Balance is the key. Microsoft and Sony both proved this gen that exclusivity isn't necessarily the only path to success or failure.
 
This is the most insane premise I've ever read. I can't even begin to argue with it because it is so fundamentally flawed to begin with.
 
Use plus then, a plus for the 360 since it's in no way an exclusive.

A plus, a bullet point, whatever.

You all get the point.

I know we're deliberately narrowing the field of discussion, but it's inevitable given the OP and the "console race" it implies.

We are talking about the mainstream market, which does not include "conscious" (terrible definition, I know) gamers like you and me. It involves gamers having maybe a single console. So the market is incredibly narrow for them.

Moreover, they lack the knowledge or the willingness to expand their view.
 
Just like there are many types of gamer, not just core and casual, there are many types of exclusives (first party, third party, downloadable, console/PC). Moving goalposts in either direction does absolutely nothing but serve your own subjective tastes. Saying "Yes, but that was released on PC" means absolutely nothing to the millions that don't game on the PC. It's a personal limitation that PC gamers can overcome, and thus it's a solid argument for why 360 might be a poor choice for them, but it doesn't say anything about the system to individuals that favour not gaming on a PC.

Similarly saying "Downloadables don't count, Kinect games don't count" is again just wiping away things that don't appeal to you on the same level as a retail title, despite the fact that they do to millions of others. Thus the appeal of any console is down to individual taste, so writing lists with a variety of factors that cut out games people love is a pointless exercise. It might prove a point about why you don't like a system, but not why the system is weak as a whole.

This thread should be locked and this in the OP. Bravo.
 
I perfectly know what an exclusive is.
i actually doubt that

Minecraft is on pc, and it's better than the xbla version. Go tell that to 5 million people who bought the game.

i guess what matters is how it sells, not the fact that it's available on another platform

They don't care. Same goes for all the games that can be played on the pc. They're still effectively a 360 exclusive, since those games are nowhere to be find on the ps3, wii, 3ds, Vita, etc.

a game that can be played on another platform (pc) outside 360 is an exclusive because it's not on other platforms by sony or nintendo. gotcha.

you're bringing your opinion into something that has a very clear definition: games are exclusives when you can't play them on other platforms. it doesn't matter how much they sell, it doesn't matter how much value it brings to a platform or whatever goalpost you want to move.
as opiate said, games can bring value to a platform even if they're multiplatform. but to come out and say "it's an exclusive because it's not on ps3/wii/wiiU/psp/ds/3ds/vita BUT it's on pc" is just false. reviews are subjective, the definition of exclusive is not.
 
I dunno there's been a few people in this thread who have straight up said PC doesn't count. I understand if they're talking about a platform where a game was ported but it pretty clearly is not the same game on any level, like a 360 game being ported to ios, but ignoring a platform where the versions of the game are actually a ton better is baffling to me.

It's clear what happened. You were talking about the variety of exclusive you could play on the PS3 and when I mention the console exclusives on the 360 then it was you that brought the PC into it.

I just was showing how diverse the 360 was as well and that in the end it all comes down to preference.
 
Cant play shit on PlayStation. If Sony releases Uncharted 2 as a dl on PS4 Its not exclusive anymore? Dumb argument is dumb.
Okay first of all calm down. For god's sake let's at least try and keep the maturity level here somewhere above gamefaqs.

That being said no, I personally would probably not call it an exclusive title any longer, at least not in the sense that it's only playable on a single type of hardware. I would probably refer to it as being exclusive in the past tense. That too being said you could still make an argument that it's still exclusive to the playstation family of branding/hardware in a way that would be much harder to claim for xbox and pc. The personal computer space is large and not exclusively windows as the linux and apple bases are being expanded into in regards for gaming.
 
This is the most insane premise I've ever read. I can't even begin to argue with it because it is so fundamentally flawed to begin with.

It's bizarre.

Yes, the number of 360 exclusives that aren't Kinect trash is down. No doubt. This would be why they're doing timed content DLC efforts with Activision, Bethesda, etc.

Given the platform sales of CoD and affected games, it seems to be at least partly working. The Xbox platform is not only the primary choice of fans of these games, it's in no danger of losing out this next gen. The Wii U is an underbaked joke, and Sony simply does not have the resources to outbid Microsoft for this type of exclusive content, nor properly market it.
 
you're bringing your opinion into something that has a very clear definition: games are exclusives when you can't play them on other platforms. it doesn't matter how much they sell, it doesn't matter how much value it brings to a platform or whatever goalpost you want to move.
as opiate said, games can bring value to a platform even if they're multiplatform. but to come out and say "it's an exclusive because it's not on ps3/wii/wiiU/psp/ds/3ds/vita BUT it's on pc" is just false. reviews are subjective, the definition of exclusive is not.

See this:

Again, most of this is unstated, but many people on GAF are traditional gamers who grew up on traditional consoles and are almost completely unaware of the other segments of the market. Not everyone fits that description, but a good number of people here only pay attention to home consoles at the "standard" point on the tech curve, and which use a traditional game pad as their primary input device. Anything else is outside their bubble and is only discussed if you make a conscious effort to remind them that iOS/3DS/PC/Wi/Kinect/Facbeook/etc.i exist.

And my previous post:

A plus, a bullet point, whatever.

You all get the point.

I know we're deliberately narrowing the field of discussion, but it's inevitable given the OP and the "console race" it implies.

We are talking about the mainstream market, which does not include "conscious" (terrible definition, I know) gamers like you and me. It involves gamers having maybe a single console. So the market is incredibly narrow for them.

Moreover, they lack the knowledge or the willingness to expand their view.

It should be clear by now. If you somehow feel offended by the way I stretched the definition of "exclusive" to fit a particular contest, my apologies.
 
Remember what got them to the party in the first place. Good exclusives that aren't developed with Kinect in mind.

Games like Halo 4, Forza Horizon, Mark of the Ninja, Gears of War: Judgment, State of Decay and Skulls of the Shogun?
 
This is patently false. PC Gaming revenue dwarfs both the PS3 and 360 in revenue.

Regarding the ongoing discussion, I agree with both sides. Discounting Minecraft as a valuable addition to the 360 software library is wrong. Obviously, it is. So, for that matter, is Call of Duty, despite the fact that the game is on every system under the sun.

So I agree that a game isn't unimportant simply because it's not an exclusive. The number of people who have every single system and therefore only really value exclusives for each system are vanishingly small.

On the flipside, there are people trying to refer to games as "console exclusives" when what you really mean is "it's not on PS3." In this day and age, that's such a narrow field of view as to largely be irrelevant and strikes me as a deliberate attempt to make things sound better than they actually are. Minecraft can simultaneously be a multiplatform title and also be very important to the value of an Xbox.


No they when speaking of this gen they are talking about the consoles this gen, The Wii, PS3, and the 360. The PC is a platform but not a console. It's not a new term that people made up today.
 
Games like Halo 4, Forza Horizon, Mark of the Ninja, Gears of War: Judgment, State of Decay and Skulls of the Shogun?

So whats coming this year........
K then.

MS does not need to win back the core gamer. They just need to make sure that they follow with them to next gen. Their lineup better be damn good considering the piss poor lineup for the 360 this year in terms of exclusives.
 
amount of exclusives don't mean shit. What matters is the impact of the titles.

Journey a game of the year contender was released on PSN this year PS3 is the only place you will ever play that game. But can we honestly sit here and say that game has more impact that Minecraft on 360????

But Minecraft doesn't count because you can play it on PC? It's the impact of the title that matters. This gen has proven that number of exclusives does not matter. What matters is if your title hits and when it hits.

Sure most of the Summer of arcade titles end up on other platforms eventually but the hype and marketing and the impact of those game are on the 360 and that is what matters. Sticking your head in the ground trying not to believe this doesn't change the fact.
 
So whats coming this year........
K then.

MS does not need to win back the core gamer. They just need to make sure that they follow with them to next gen. Their lineup better be damn good considering the piss poor lineup for the 360 this year in terms of exclusives.

Possibly a next gen Xbox console where there will probably be a ton of timed exclusives and straight up first party exclusives. Not to mention third party games this year are bonkers.
 
amount of exclusives don't mean shit. What matters is the impact of the titles.

Journey a game of the year contender was released on PSN this year PS3 is the only place you will ever play that game. But can we honestly sit here and say that game has more impact that Minecraft on 360????

But Minecraft doesn't count because you can play it on PC? It's the impact of the title that matters. This gen has proven that number of exclusives does not matter. What matters is if your title hits and when it hits.

Sure most of the Summer of arcade titles end up on other platforms eventually but the hype and marketing and the impact of those game are on the 360 and that is what matters. Sticking your head in the ground trying not to believe this doesn't change the fact.
What do you mean by impact.
 
Remember what got them to the party in the first place. Good exclusives that aren't developed with Kinect in mind.

Non-Kinect exclusives outweight Kinect exclusives clearly, so I have no idea what you mean by that. It's easy to ignore Kinect and still get good games.

So whats coming this year........
K then.

MS does not need to win back the core gamer. They just need to make sure that they follow with them to next gen. Their lineup better be damn good considering the piss poor lineup for the 360 this year in terms of exclusives.

It's pretty clear that this year the 360 is fading out.
 
So whats coming this year........
K then.

MS does not need to win back the core gamer. They just need to make sure that they follow with them to next gen. Their lineup better be damn good considering the piss poor lineup for the 360 this year in terms of exclusives.


We really have to stop exaggerating the impact of exclusives. Sony has creamed MS when it comes to the number and quality of exclusives, yet they are still in last place in the US.

Nobody seems to care about games like Journey, Playstation Allstars, 3D Dot Game Heroes, etc.....but they do care that Skyrim runs like garbage on the PS3.
 
Non-Kinect exclusives outweight Kinect exclusives clearly, so I have no idea what you mean by that. It's easy to ignore Kinect and still get good games.

Whenever I see an E3 conference by MS, all they talk about is Kinect and throw in the random exclusive at the end of the presentation.
 
Sony can have all the exclusives in the world but it really doesn't matter if a good number of them are fairly medicore games.

Quality > quantity.
 
amount of exclusives don't mean shit. What matters is the impact of the titles.

Journey a game of the year contender was released on PSN this year PS3 is the only place you will ever play that game. But can we honestly sit here and say that game has more impact that Minecraft on 360????

But Minecraft doesn't count because you can play it on PC? It's the impact of the title that matters. This gen has proven that number of exclusives does not matter. What matters is if your title hits and when it hits.

Sure most of the Summer of arcade titles end up on other platforms eventually but the hype and marketing and the impact of those game are on the 360 and that is what matters. Sticking your head in the ground trying not to believe this doesn't change the fact.

No. Learn the meaning of the word fact.
What do you mean impact and to who? Are we judging impact on software sales or hardware sales? For instance COD B2 might have more software sales but a game like GT5 might have sold for hardware.

People are not going to rush to the store to buy a XBL game lol. I see many people,especially Xboxers over playing the importance of DD titles. To the general market they have zero impact as they are not advertised or popular enough. The current user base though, may find them very important but you see they already have a 360/ps3.
 
So whats coming this year........
K then.

MS does not need to win back the core gamer. They just need to make sure that they follow with them to next gen. Their lineup better be damn good considering the piss poor lineup for the 360 this year in terms of exclusives.

The Holiday just passed

Halo 4 the most expensive game ever made just released 3 months ago. They are a month away from releasing Gears of War: Judgement.

You have high profile games from Tomb Rairder, and Metal Gear both which MS promoted on the E3 stage.

You also have Bioshock Infinite and Grand Theft Auto 5 which is the biggest and most anticipated game of the year dropping. All of these lead to E3, where the new system is about to drop.
 
The next Xbox.
Or are you telling me that 2013 will be the first year that Microsoft will not release exclusive titles at fall?

If the 720 does launch this fall, what games could possibly be ready for it?

Won't be halo because 4 just came out. Won't be gears because a new gears is coming out on 360 in a few months. Won't be fable because they just created that awful kinect game.

I'm not trying to bash microsoft, i just can't think of any exclusives that could be ready for launch that's a system seller.
 
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