The times, they are changing. Exclusivity in gaming and TV and film has been a thing since day one. Film studios used to own their own chain of cinemas where they’d show their films, often as doubles with a B movie or cartoon short preceding the main feature. TV channels produce their own exclusive content to keep people engaged in their ecosystem and nowhere else. Today, streaming networks are doing the same only now it’s not just the likes of HBO locked behind paywalls but streaming services are all subscription based.
Video games are no different. Since day one, console makers have had in house teams, later actual development studios, to produce games to sell that encourage potential consumers into their system over their rivals. The idea of third party developers and publishers didn’t exist until Activision was founded in 1979.
With the advent of third party publishers comes their own studios and thus we see the likes of Nintendo and Sega purchasing exclusive deals for certain games to only be released on their platforms. One infamous example is Capcom’s Final Fight being exclusive to the SNES, albeit with only being single player. Sega’s response was to create Streets of Rage which became a big series for the Mega Drive/Genesis.
Sony would take the strategy of paying for exclusive games to the next level, which was helped by an already dominating market share early on with the PlayStation. Such big titles such as Tomb Raider II and III with the first being being timed exclusive for the Sega Saturn. Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon are two other notable examples. Although the likes of Grand Theft Auto seemed exclusive, it was initially planned for porting over to the Nintendo 64 but cartridge limitations made it an impossible option.
However, the GTA trilogy that came to the PlayStation 2 was exclusive, but only after Microsoft foolishly refused. Sega continued to produce exclusive games for their own consoles right up until the time it was announced that the Dreamcast no longer receive support from Sega and they were to be going third party. From that point onwards, Sega began to publish some of their games exclusively to various systems. The two Shenmue titles were ported over to the Xbox console exclusively whereas certain Sonic the Hedgehog games would be exclusive to the Nintendo systems moving forward whereas others would remain multiplatform.
In more recent years, we have seen the idea of exclusive games, both first and third party, change as development costs have soared throughout the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One generation and into the current generation of consoles from both Sony and Microsoft.
Microsoft were the first to begin moving away from exclusivity when in 2016, it was announced all future first party games would also be released on PC day one. In more recent years, Sony too has began moving towards making their first party games available on PC, just not day one.
We have also began to witness the move towards first party games being available to purchase across competitors consoles with Microsoft first releasing Ori and the Blind Forrest on the Nintendo Switch, and more recently in 2024, we have seen a more open push to move to a more third party avenue for Xbox as a brand. We have yet to see exactly how far this will go and as to whether future instalments of Halo and Forza will go onto competing consoles.
Sony has also seen some exclusive games go elsewhere, with the release of Lego Horizon Adventures being a major example of this as it released day one on PC but more importantly, Nintendo Switch. Although Nintendo hasn’t made any of their own games available elsewhere, there are the odd game that has been funded and published by Nintendo which has since made its way onto rival consoles.
Two games that immediately springs to mind that were once published by Nintendo are Wonderful 101 from Platinum Games and Lego City Undercover from TT Games both for the Wii U. During launch year of the Nintendo Switch, Lego City Undercover saw a port alongside being released also on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles. Nintendo owned the IP to Wonderful 101, but sold it to Platinum Games whom ported it to the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 though with little fanfare.
Over the next decade we are likely to see things change further, as already the incentive for third parties to sign exclusivity deals is becoming harder to justify outside of timed exclusivity. Square Enix has already announced the need to move away from exclusive games after Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth both sold less than hoped on the PlayStation 5. At the moment, it is likely that Sony will stick almost entirely to releasing first party games to PlayStation consoles and then PC down the road, however as each new console generation requires ever growing resources, longer development time and larger budgets, this may change.
Microsoft has bought a large number of independent developers but also two large publishers and with a failing console business, the revenue is certainly looking to be better generated from a third party perspective. Thats not to say Microsoft will necessarily abandon console exclusives, but as rumours and poor communication has continued throughout 2024 along with more and more first party developed games going onto PlayStation 5, along with comments made by Phil Spencer, it may well be coming to an end sooner rather than later.
As things stand for Nintendo, there’s no reason to ever believe we should expect to see first party games or games using Nintendo’s IP developed by third party, ever going anywhere other than Nintendo’s own consoles. At the moment, it’s working incredibly well for Nintendo with the Nintendo Switch at a whopping 146 million and game sales all doing incredibly well, so we should expect little to change for the next console at the very least. Perhaps this is a good thing as Nintendo may well be the rock of familiarity and old school thinking in an age where everything is changing and nothing is guaranteed.
