Interesting Comparison of 7th Generation Exclusives

[FerretGamer]

'course, I think one angle to look at that I don't think was covered outside of the PC summary, is performance by year. Offhand, I think the 360 used to be stronger than it is now for exclusives, where the PS3 has gotten better.

This is a very good point. I was actually looking at 360 games to see where I needed to fill some gaps in my collection. The majority of the exclusives came much earlier on in the 360's life. Whereas, the PS3 is now dominating with the exclusives. It is definitely interesting to see the trends across all of the platforms and how they have evolved.

[crux]

To clarify my point (regarding Wii), it's the "average" number that I'm interested in. There's too many discrepancies to put faith in the averages websites like Metacritic put forth. Case in point, Space Giraffe has an "average" score with 68, but the scores for the game range from a perfect 100 to an abysmal 20. Imagine what the person who scores it 100 is missing out on if he followed the advise of the critic scoring it 20? We all find games we appreciate more than average, so that "252" is a big indication that there are a lot of games left to be discovered for the Wii.

PC, of course, is indie developer territory and wins hands-down when it comes to obscure gems thanks to platforms like Steam giving them a place to be found on the cheap. That said, thanks to the lower cost one wonders how PC games would fair if they were compared proportionately to their cost (ie. if a $5 indie game was $40 or $50 instead). I'd have paid shelf-retail price for a game like World of Goo, perhaps, but for a game like Little Inferno? Perhaps not. But that too is a powerful argument for the PC platform: I didn't have to choose.

[Jmustang1968]

On the flipside, many non exclusives are usually better in some shape or form on the 360 than the PS3. With the exception of games with multiple discs on 360

[Erik_Twice]

Yay, Metacritic! Because nothing helps you understand games more than putting more shitty "game journalists" together

[KillerJuan77]

Yay, Metacritic! Because nothing helps you understand games more than putting more shitty "game journalists" together

Also the idiots in the user review area. Metacritic is horrendous!

[CRTGAMER]

Maybe the best reviewers are the ones not paid to write a review? I have pretty good luck discovering games from reviews on sites such as here or even customers at Amazon. No deadlines or pressure of advertising, review based on one buying and playing the game.

[casterofdreams]

I feel this is completely irrelevant. Each console will have exclusives but it's all about personal taste. What YOU like. What YOU think is interesting. Not one console is better than the other. It all matters on what you want to get out of the thing.

[Gamerforlife]

I feel like ultimately, exclusives are the main reason for owning any gaming platform. I got a new gaming PC and I've tried to focus mostly on playing exclusives or games that used to be exclusives as I feel that is how I can best appreciate the PC as a gaming platform. I wish more games were exclusive as it would give every gaming platform more of a unique identity and that would make console wars so much more interesting. I think it would be the coolest thing ever to live in a world where multi-platform games didn't exist. Every game would be designed specifically for one console and would thus get the most of that console. There's a reason why people get so impressed by what they see in certain PS3 exclusive games, because those games are designed to get the most out of the hardware rather than just being a 360 port.

We had a lot more exclusives in the 16-bit days. Sega has Sonic, Streets of Rage, Vectorman, Treasure games, Toejam & Earl, Shinobi, Golden Axe, Comix Zone etc. Nintendo had Mario, Metroid, Zelda, Starfox, Donkey Kong Country, Final Fight, Mega Man X, etc.

What was really interesting back in those days is when a third party developer would bring a property to both consoles and had to make entirely different games due to differences in hardware. Compare games like Contra Hard Corps and Castlevania Bloodlines to Contra 3 and Super Castlevania IV. It was kind of cool seeing what happened also when more than one company got a license. You can play Aladdin on both the Genesis and the Super Nintendo, but they're two entirely different games by two different developers. Same goes for the Adventures of Batman and Robin

Back then, three different people with three different consoles (let's say one of them had a Neo Geo)would be getting three very different gaming experiences. Not to say that there weren't multi-plat games that were the same across all platforms, but there were a lot more differences in software back then with a higher number of exclusives and more licensed properties being used differently on different consoles. It wasn't like today where 90% of games are on all systems and provide roughly the same experience on each one

[Ack]

Admittedly from a research angle, I think it is an interesting examination. Does that mean much for the average gamer? No, not really. But if you were considering looking into an examination of game journalism, it might make for an interesting consideration.

[Gamerforlife]

Maybe the best reviewers are the ones not paid to write a review? I have pretty good luck discovering games from reviews on sites such as here or even customers at Amazon. No deadlines or pressure of advertising, review based on one buying and playing the game.

I generally find "professional" reviewers to be odd creatures that are nothing like most gamers I've met. How they view games, their expectations of them, etc. are all a little bizarre. Like when I read a review praising a game's use of leaderboards and I think, "who the hell cares about leaderboards" or when they complain about the lack of multi-player in a game that no one was going to buy for multi-player. Or when they repeatedly bash certain genres for being repetitive (like beat 'em ups)when 90% of video game genres feature a fair amount of repetition but don't get called out on it for some reason

I'll also read reviews on a game that make no mention of bugs and glitches that you can find players talking about on every gaming forum out there. It's almost like they didn't even play the game. In fact, many reviews read like glorified preview articles, which anyone can write even if they've not actually played the game at all.

Even more shocking is how often reviewers will make bold statements as if they are well known facts, when they couldn't be further from the truth. You know there are still reviewers out who will review the latest licensed game and start it with some line about how licensed games always suck, when there's a huge list of quality licensed games that have come out in the last thirty years.