The death of the 'Exclusive'

 

Somehow within the past few console generations, measurements of 'Exclusives' have become a litmus test for how that respective company is performing within this 'console war' that we all like to pretend isn't real because in such a world- wars have losers. Securing award winning games that push the needle forward really symbolise the fact that you (Nintendo, Playstation) are leaders of the industry securing all the best reasons to play and positively growing the industry that raised you. Whilst struggling to put out anything worth a damn in the AAA space (Xbox, Stadia) is seen as a emblematic of a collapsing model that is failing to keep up with the demands of an industry that pushes ever forward. Creating fear and uncertainty for those that lag behind. Is the biggest and most powerful company in the world really headed towards shutting their gaming arm? If they continue to flounder like this, possibly!

Thus games of such huge renown as 'The Last of Us' and 'Starfield' have become soldiers in a battle far beyond themselves, ranked up for their ability to drive entire console purchases and lambasted for every way they fail to rewrite what it even means to be a gamer. But in that same breath, they've also become symbols of the giant wall that 'marketing' and 'finance partners' have forcibly erected between gamers and games. So many titles are sequestered to forgettable parts of the ecosystem that are then retired, losing great experiences to the void of false 'progress'. I had to wait years before I could play the Persona games because of exclusivity. Fans of Samurai are just getting Ghost of Tsushima this month. And now, after so many years of suffering, the shoe is starting to drop at the one place producers fear most- their bottom line.

Xbox was the first to really give up when it came to trying to create a brand of exclusive titles to combat the Playstation supremacy. They purchased studio after studio, dropped a metric bomb worth of funding behind a nowhere project that we're still heard no update on, and they put actual billions into their buying spree stealing exclusivities off of Playstation. And it hasn't moved the needle Xbox's direction any significant manner. Maybe if Starfield was more of a world beater like it was originally proposed to be, but without any significant gains, Xbox is looking more and more like a financial burden. Now that Game Pass is starting to slow down, they've run out of ways to prove themselves equals in the playing field, and it's all falling apart.

We're already seen a slate of Xbox exclusives spit their way onto Playstation in a desperate bid to try and score some more players and buyers, with Sea of Thieves being the biggest to make the leap so far. Reports claim that Xbox are being pressured to port everything eventually, with absolutely nothing held back. Look out for the incoming Starfield port, Indiana Jones may just launch multi-platform, and then what? Gears of War? Halo? It's probably coming. All because the exclusivity model has proven to be unsustainable in the modern age. And, of course, we've had pointless layoffs thrown in the mix for good measure because this is the worst timeline, of course! 

And what of Final Fantasy? The biggest JRPG franchise in the world, and probably the biggest RPG franchise straight up- Final Fantasy has jumped back and forth between which studio it better favours over the year, being first a Nintendo exclusive before being pushed onto Playstation thanks to the lack of N64 innovation before fliting with Xbox for 13 and 15 and now sleeping with the ex over at Sony once more. Their games launch as exclusives so often it's a genuine mystery where one would even need to go to begin building something resembling an exhaustive collection of their games. (I think even Steams remaster collection misses out on a few choice titles over the years.) But maybe this has started to catch up with them.

Both Final Fantasy XVI and VII Rebirth have been reported to be underperforming compared to their previous counterparts, even when taking into account exclusivity hold-ups. These titles have already surrendered to timed exclusivity with the PC market, but even that doesn't appear to be cutting it when many players, such as myself, hold no interest in getting the game until it's made available on Steam leading to a lack of engagement. I don't even think the community has been as rampant about VII rebirth as they were for Remake, and the wave of excitement around XVI dissolved long before XV had done it's rounds. Something needs to be done!

During it's financial round up the last year, Square included a little note about their future strategies, revealing an intention to focus more on releasing games on multiple platforms going forward, perhaps even including the Xbox! This would be a drastic shift from the Final Fantasy strategy of the modern day, which has been so hardline that the director of XVI still refuse to acknowledge whether a PC port even exists as a possibility. But Rebirth was announced upfront with at least three months exclusivity. But from here we may just be getting full cross-console parity to feast on with our hungry-hungry eyes! (Goodness knows we thirst for it!) 

So does this finally mark a shift in the perception around the role of 'the exclusive' within the games marketing world? What once existed as a testament to the broadening of brand value is now considered a wayward relic of previous generations, a roadblock in profitability that benefits nothing. Perhaps the death of Xbox's competitiveness might just be push everyone needed, as now that there's no-one to compete against Sony as no reason to keep it's toys in it's own playpen anymore. Of course, that doesn't mean we should be crossing our fingers that big boy Nintendo starts sharing, that spoilt brat has been stuck on his lonesome for so long I doubt he even knows other consoles even exist in the modern day!