Console exclusivity of games is a way to provide an incentive for purchasing your console.
Imagine you’re a business and you spent millions on the R&D, manufacturing pipelines, shipping logistics, marketing, etc for this cool new console but you’ve got nothing on it by default that people can’t get elsewhere. In this situation, the first console to launch in a given generation would win. If you profit off of the console (you should), any exclusive that converts a user is price of console + price of game gross revenue.
This helps explain why we’ve had exclusives, but the winds are changing. These game companies which make both games and consoles see the short-term profits from your aforementioned wasted opportunity as more valuable nowadays while largely ignoring the fact that a lack of exclusives will make their consoles less desirable.
IMO the PC is going to basically cannibalize the console market (everything goes there and goes on sale, emulation included) and PC hardware can be made to last for a very long time despite a higher initial investment. If Valve can get a Console-like experience that’s plug-and-play with a TV, then Sony and Microsoft are in a bit of a bind.
Every time I open up eShop I am astonished how the main place where I am supposed to pay money to Nintendo is literally the slowest, most annoying and unresponsive thing on Switch. I am literally astonished at how they have managed to make it that bad.
Yeah. And the lack of a decent option off device. I was trying to check if a first party game was on sale on the Mar 10 day sales and it a nightmare from my phone. If there is a way to just look at “Nintendo” games I could not find it.
This is a sad day for racing fans. Codemaster's games were the perfect balance between simulation and arcade. I wish MS/Turn 10/Playground could somehow acquire them.
The good news is the developers are still alive. Hopefully someone has enough money to spin off a new studio free from EA and makes even better versions.
I wish somebody would do a postmortem on the shitshow that is EA WRC, despite having the most beloved rally game dev team and the biggest license in rallying.
How can you say that when they haven’t made a game in a decade? Its like saying the beetles are culturally irrelevant. GTA continues to influence other games and is relevant to society even if they never made another game. I think fortnite is a dumb capitalist nothing game but I can’t deny it’s relevance.
Eh, each game had a very different feel. I didn’t play GTA 1 or 2, so I’ll start after that point:
GTA III - caricatures the mafia and the FBI, but otherwise is somewhat light on satire (good setup for the franchise though)
GTA VC - lots of satire about the 70s and mafia in Miami
GTA SA - lots of satire about a wide range of topics, from 90s gang culture to the burgeoning tech scene in San Francisco
GTA IV - lots of statements about the immigrant experience, with satire along the way
GTA V - satire about middle class life in LA, the excitement of tech getting stale and turning bad, etc
Each has a fair amount of satire and something to say about the world, I just found GTA V a lot less interesting than previous titles. GTA IV is my favorite for a playthrough, GTA SA is a close second (I love exploring SA).
So far we’ve gotten good single player games along with those online modes, including RDR2 after GTA5, so it’s at least plausible that GTA6 will have good single player still.
Won’t be playing it until it’s on PC anyways, so I’ll for sure have found out by then.
You’re right! But the hype exists. It will reach peak for the four months post the launch, creating fomo. Peer pressure with such launches are a human problem
I get it’s a massive franchise, like Madden or Call of Duty… don’t buy those either.
whew, I’m trying to understand your comment, but this is kinda coming off pretty…holier-than-thou? Which, I do get that because I can find myself like that with movies/tv, but still…we gotta let people like what they like.
In this case though, I honestly think this is a pretty terrible comparison. Madden and CoD don’t have massive single player appeal that GTA or RDR have. They are total schlock in that regard (though, I hear CoD’s recent campaigns are actually good).
GTA and RDR on the other hand very skillfully mix elements of RPG, immersive sim, and adventure game. They’re huge sandboxes for the player to explore and discover new things, within which are nestled very well written stories that critique modern life and touch upon themes that, yes, you could find them in various indie games if you look a bit, but are somewhat unique in the blockbuster gamescape. It’s difficult to find other single player games with the scope of Rockstar games, though I think it is getting easier.
But comparing GTA to Madden or CoD is kinda whack unless you’re looking at GTA Online in isolation.
Still, there’s very little overlap in GTA Online and Madden/COD. GTA Online is still very much sandbox-y, caters somewhat well to playing alone, and has a team gameplay loop. People tend to play this periodically but probably don’t have it be their main/only game.
Madden and COD are both highly competitive games with pretty much no sandbox, and their appeal is pretty limited after a couple years when the next one comes out. People tend to stick to these franchises as their main game, playing very little else.
The main similarity is that they’re AAA games, but that’s really it.
I think GTA online could be compared to Madden and CoD in that they all have aggressive(-ly lame) monetization tactics. But the way jordanlund frames it (sorry jordan, I don’t mean to rag on you – like I said, I can also be like this) sounds more to me like a “i only listen to artists with less than 1000 monthly listeners” type of statement
Jordanlund’s comment could be read/interpreted that way sure, but personally I read it more as “yes gta is a big/popular/genre-defining game, but not my cup of tea” kind of vibe.
I have played and enjoyed previous gta titles, but I myself am partial to slower more thoughtful games like Baldur’s Gate (I suspect same could be said for jordanlund as well).
For sure for sure. I definitely read it that way, in part, because I have to consciously remind myself that my taste is my own and I should try not to dismiss people who like their art to be more…palatable, i guess? Because I have the capacity to be that guy, unfortunately. So I try to watch a blockbuster every once in a while, so to speak.
I think it was probably the comparison between GTA and Madden and CoD that threw me, because they have almost no similarities besides being AAA.
Their comment kinda reminded me of how the Kingdom Come: Deliverance fandom can be. I mean, I fucking love KCD and KCD2, they’re two of the best games I’ve ever played. They can slow AF though, and frustrating at times. But whenever someone mentions that, or that they didn’t like it, someone else invariably comes along and completely dismisses their opinion, like “You just don’t understand it,” or “Maybe you just don’t have the attention span to really immerse yourself.” It’s like dude, you don’t need to make someone feel bad for not liking a game.
Wow, I gave you a lot of benefit of the doubt in my comments, but you’re really out here to just denigrate other people’s tastes, aren’t you? How refined, how cultured your game library must be. How sweet your shit must smell. How does it feel up there, where you’ll never touch a game frequented by us Dorito-eaters and us Mountain-Dew-drinkers? Feels good, huh? Feels better.
I enjoy it, I don‘t (allegedly) 100 bucks enjoy it though. I‘ll wait for a few years and grab it on sale. And ngl, I‘ve grown pretty tired of triple digit playtime games anyway.
I’ll still want it, I’ll feel a strong sense of FOMO if I don’t, but I don’t really care any more. After seeing how much money GTAO was making I strongly suspect they’ll put a lot more focus on that. In my opinion gta online sucked a lot of ass. It was fun as a playground to hang around with friends in, but as an actual game I’d rather we’d have agreed on any other game to play. I would never load it up to play by myself.
I hope I’m wrong and the story mode slaps, but at the super-premium price it’s going to end up costing i won’t justify it.
Honestly they should have never been yearly releases. Of course everyone is burnt out on them, and nothing innovate has happened in the rally codemaster games in years. I’m sad this is happening but it’s definitely mismanagement.
Yep, they should have just put the yearly changes on something like a season pass and timed the major release with the regulation changes to match the simulation engine development.
Management did exactly what they wanted to do. They released a product with no regard to anything except short term profits. What happens in a year is future thems problem.
Rumors are that they want to charge $100 and they’re sitting back to see the financial climate with the price increases to see if consumers will bend over and take it without any pushback
Or…switch 2 version taking longer than Expected…
OR. they’re seeing the writing on the wall for the console industry and they’re going to release VI for all platforms (PC included) next year
My guess would be they’ll do some kind of tiered release strucructure, and/or have already finished or mostly finished 2 years+ worth of major updates, including new ‘chapters’ of the main single player story… and basically, you’ll have to subscribe.
Like … $160 for whole game, major expansion 1, 2 and 3, $120 for game + 1st expansion… Or your baseline $100, and then a subscription battlepass mmo monthly charge, or you can pay more for expansions in chunks, seperately.
Speaking out of my ass, I think the majority will take it without pushback.
I’m sure there’s a swath of people with a console just play the yearly COD/FIFA, eagerly waiting for GTA 6 to drop. They’ll buy it without blinking.
GB is personality driven, when Alex, Vinny and Brad left, it already felt like a shift to the end. When Gerstmann was let go, GB really seemed doomed.
Fandom dictating what they can and cannot do when the site relies on their personalities and free form content just shows they don’t want the brand or people.
I really love Nextlander. I like fire escape. I miss Gerstmann, but I don’t want to listen to a solo podcast.
Yeah I loved Giant Bomb back in the day, but it was all about the people. With Vinny, Brad, Alex, and Jeff gone I just moved on to their new projects and stopped paying attention to Giant Bomb. Nowadays Giant Bomb is just a name to me.
I am absolutely in the same boat. I would love to listen to Jeff as well and every time he has a guest on I make sure to grab the podcast, but I can’t listen to one person podcasts. He absolutely needs a co-host or guests every week.
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