PC no longer gets big exclusives I’ve realised

RetroGamingUK

RetroGamingUK

Member
I remember getting my first PC back in 1997 (an IBM Aptiva with Windows 95). While it wasn't the best at running the latest 3D games it was something I still dabbled in (buying Computer Shopper and trying the demos).

Back then there were so many exclusives which, if you had a 3DFX card absolutely blew consoles out of the water

Half-Life
Quake II/ Quake 3 Arena
Thief: The Dark Project
Tom Clancey's Rainbow Six
Homeworld
System Shock 2
Grim Fandango
Unreal Tournament

These games would remain exclusive to PC for years and, if they ever did get ported to console, they would either be severely diminished or something that barely resembled the PC version at all.

Now these types of game all come to console on the same day and, apart from some small resolution differences are exactly the same game.

Then there's online, while you have to pay for console online, consoles get online capability day 1, just as they do on PC.

Many here keep pushing PC due to it having more console games without realising that it's a two way street, consoles now have all the big PC games.

When did all those change, was it the PS3/360 generation?

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PC's glory years
 
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My first guess is that it's a result of the times. More devs flop than ever before and to stay afloat companies need all they can get.

It also helps that modern console architectures are much more friendly to the idea of console ports than they used to be, so to answer your question I'd guess PS4 was when it really ramped up
 
amigastar said:
One thing that sucks is that GTA series is console first and then PC, It should be coming out at the same time.
Click to expand...

That's true, is it due to them wanting to optimise for console before dealing with infinite PC configurations?

Funnily enough GTA started as a PC exclusive

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I am really bitter about my favourite games being stuck at sub 720p resolution thanks to exclusivity. If the Xenoblade games had released on PC, I would have atleast had the option of playing them at native 800p on my Steam Deck. Now I got to suffer through the jaggies in spite of owning a Switch 2. Exclusives are not great in all cases (particularly for niche series that has not sold more than 10 million copies across 4 entries on a console where even lazy barebones cash grabs with the name Mario in them do more than 5 million at full price).
 
There used to be vast, vast, differences in the console and pc market. The technology and the userbases both converged over time. There used to a lot of de-facto exclusives because computers could do things consoles couldn't and vice-versa. And then the computer players heavily skewed older. Remember that? Video games as opposed to computer games? That's how different the worlds were way back when.

Genesis started getting amiga games thanks to the ubiquity of the motorola chips, then playstation started getting amiga and dos games. At the same time, console players were aging up. And it kept going from there to where we have the situation described in the op.
 
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RetroGamingUK said:
That's true, is it due to them wanting to optimise for console before dealing with infinite PC configurations?

Funnily enough GTA started as a PC exclusive

PyFbdYmqeTukCEki.jpeg
Click to expand...
Yeah, i remember playing GTA 1 on PC in 1997. Thing is Rockstar wants to make you double dip for GTA games and probably optimize the game properly thats why GTA comes out on Console first then PC.
 
Dr.D00p said:
PS360 era destroyed the idea of the PC being the lead development platform and it ain't coming back.
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PC can still be the lead platform during development, but as far as target a level of hardware capability, planning around what the current playstation can do is a total no-brainer. Shit, I even plan my pc upgrades around it.

I think there is some space for games too advanced to run on a ps5, though. Just you'd have to have some serious resources and huge balls.
 
PC still gets exclusive strategy/RTS games that require a mouse/kb.

But the glory days of the popular RTS games (Red Alert, Starcraft, etc) died a long time ago.
 
I remember when owning a Personal Computer meant a great deal of interactivity and exclusive games. Now if you try to propose any ownership over a product, even games made specifically for PC, people cry harder than they do over national tragedies.
 
Gubaldo said:
PC doesn't get exclusives
but now it is getting other consoles exclusive games
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That was my point.

The likes of ArtHands ArtHands will bleat endlessly that console gaming is dead due to dwindling console exclusives, while being wilfully ignorant that the EXACT same thing is happening to PC gaming.

I'd say the last big PC exclusive was Cyberpunk 2077, but only in the way that it was crap on console. Witcher 4 is now being developed around base PS5.
 
nkarafo said:
PC still gets exclusive strategy/RTS games that require a mouse/kb.

But the glory days of the popular RTS games (Red Alert, Starcraft, etc) died a long time ago.
Click to expand...

My old PC was very good at running those.

Absolutely loved Dark Reign, Red Alert 2 and Rollercoaster Tycoon.

Now that I work in an office the last thing I want to do when I get home is sit at my desk with a mouse and get RSI.
 
It's too expensive. Devs have to make money with the games, Console manufactorers can even afford to lose some money, because they want to sell consoles with them.
 
I think it is more of an AAA thing than a PC/console thing.
AAA exclusives on consoles pretty much no longer exist either, unless they are games by the platform holder. Even niche ass Japanese games come to PC now.
There are still plenty of exclusives though in the realm of smaller devs or indie games.
 
PC has fewer AAA exclusives these days as major console hardware and API differences have basically vanished. It's been the case for almost two decades already. No financial reason to stick to PC only in most cases. The reverse is true as well, many games used to skip PC before as well, now publishers see no reason to. The market is simply too large to ignore.

Also, claiming "apart from some small resolution differences are exactly the same game" is completely untrue for quite a large number of games.
 
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League, CS2, Dota, WoW, Alyx, Tarkov, Dwarf Fortress, Satisfactory, Garry, ARMA, Total War/Warhammer, Anno, AoMyth, Civ.........
 
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We have to remember that for a long time consoles were simply incapable of replicating mouse controlled FPS in anything like an adequate way. That translation had to at least change from shit to adequate before they were in a position to take the reins from PC.

Crysis was pretty much the last hurrah for (non-MMO) big budget PC exclusives though. It was clear that PC alone (especially with its rampant piracy problem) was no longer viable for supporting the ever increasing budgets of these games. Consoles becoming the lead / effective ceiling on game development was a tragedy for gaming because of their inherent limitations, but it probably couldn't have been avoided. Steam being as established and dominant then as it is now might have slowed the switch, but probably not prevented it.
 
calico said:
It changed almost 20 years ago after Crysis, but well done on finally noticing 💪
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Came here to say this. Crysis broke the bank and nobody thought on doing something like that ever again. It was a market of pirates and cheap steaks before Steam saved it but deep inside nothing has changed much and they are treated as such. Yeah, yeah, I know you gaffers are different, but I'm speaking broadly.
 
Gubaldo said:
PC doesn't get exclusives
but now it is getting other consoles exclusive games
Click to expand...

But the question is:

For how long will EA keep games like NHL and UFC off the PC platform for some unknown reason? Especially now as Xbox as a console is dying, and PC is getting more like consoles.
 
RetroGamingUK said:
That was my point.

The likes of ArtHands ArtHands will bleat endlessly that console gaming is dead due to dwindling console exclusives, while being wilfully ignorant that the EXACT same thing is happening to PC gaming.

I'd say the last big PC exclusive was Cyberpunk 2077, but only in the way that it was crap on console. Witcher 4 is now being developed around base PS5.
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Basic logic tends to elude art. It would just get in the way of his trolling.
 
The only platform that continues to receive exclusive games with no plans to release them on another platform is Nintendo. Xbox and PlayStation no longer have exclusives, at most a few temporary ones (and Xbox doesn't even have that anymore).

Regarding the PC not having exclusive games, it has many exclusives that have already been mentioned here, but in reality it doesn't need that when it receives games from other console manufacturers, because the PC version is the definitive one due to the infinite possibilities and superior experience it provides, so I honestly don't see any difference in games being ported to consoles.
 
Well the only real advantage hardware wise a PC has is higher framerates, bit higher resolution, and more complex ray tracing.

None of these reasons are enough to exclude the console market. You can even plug a kb and mouse into a PS5 and Xbox.

It's foolish as a AAA dev to ignore the massive console market.
 
bitbydeath said:
Differences are minor these days, mostly just frame rate improvements.
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There's some games that have enough going on with settings that you could say there's a real appreciable difference. Even then though, it's firmly the same game. Res and frame rates scale with your wallet, but the overall visual impression is usually the same. The biggest difference is the ue5 games that struggle on ps5.

Does it cross my mind that I could wait for a ps5 exclusive to hit steam and play it all polished up? Sure. But some games I don't want to wait a year, so I get them on ps5. They looked great. In fact, the only significant feeling of compromise was playing rebirth at 30fps. But even that did not impact me much.

It's all in the eye of the beholder, but damn some people don't get that.
 
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The worst part is that PC exclusive design patterns are just about gone. We used to get Half-Life and Deus Ex. Now if it can't be done on a console, we don't get it at all.

The exclusives we get now are indie or made by Valve:

Kerbal Space Program
UFO 50
HL Alyx
Counter-Strike 2
 
It's true that the PC platform no longer gets AAA exclusives, but I'm not looking at this as something bad, because I don't believe that developers are held back by consoles, given that the power difference between PCs and consoles isn't nearly as big as it used to be (due to slower GPU power / technology advancements). Games like Cyberpunk, Black Myth Wukong, or even Doom The Dark Ages still pushed graphics fidelity above consoles,
 
LavitzSlambert said:
The worst part is that PC exclusive design patterns are just about gone. We used to get Half-Life and Deus Ex. Now if it can't be done on a console, we don't get it at all.
Click to expand...
If something can't run on a console, it likely won't run well on most PCs either. There's nothing uniquely powerful about standard PC hardware that consoles can't handle.

Sure, you could design for ultra-high-end setups—like Threadripper CPUs, 64–128GB of RAM, and RTX 5090s—but you'd be targeting such a small audience that you'd risk going bankrupt.
 
RetroGamingUK said:
I remember getting my first PC back in 1997 (an IBM Aptiva with Windows 95). While it wasn't the best at running the latest 3D games it was something I still dabbled in (buying Computer Shopper and trying the demos).

Back then there were so many exclusives which, if you had a 3DFX card absolutely blew consoles out of the water

Half-Life
Quake II/ Quake 3 Arena
Thief: The Dark Project
Tom Clancey's Rainbow Six
Homeworld
System Shock 2
Grim Fandango
Unreal Tournament

These games would remain exclusive to PC for years and, if they ever did get ported to console, they would either be severely diminished or something that barely resembled the PC version at all.

Now these types of game all come to console on the same day and, apart from some small resolution differences are exactly the same game.

Then there's online, while you have to pay for console online, consoles get online capability day 1, just as they do on PC.

Many here keep pushing PC due to it having more console games without realising that it's a two way street, consoles now have all the big PC games.

When did all those change, was it the PS3/360 generation?

10ZXAkAfOVdcrgiW.jpeg


PC's glory years
Click to expand...
It's more accurate to name publishers,

EA
Take Two
Bethesda
ABK
Valve
Microsoft Game Studios
Epic
WB
Capcom
SE
Ubisoft

PC games are meant to be timeless, PC gaming will stay relevant as long as games remain timeless.
 
PC gets mostly two types of exclusives.

-Games that just wouldnt work well on controller.

-Indies that have limited funding.

Sadly the former is usually only when it wouldnt work on controller at all. When it works badly, what they do instead is releasing a subpar version for both console and PC. For console because it just doesnt work well on controller, and on PC because they then end up using the same method for PC instead of doing proper PC controls and UI.
 
Corporal.Hicks said:
I don't believe that developers are held back by consoles, given that the power difference between PCs and consoles isn't nearly as big as it used to be (due to slower GPU power / technology advancements
Click to expand...
PC gaming no longer driving those advancements as it once did is part of the reason they are slower.

Hardware power is probably not the most important restriction imposed on development by prioritising console though; having to design around a controller is.

Previously there was also an industry consensus that designing for console / console gamers first and foremost also meant the game had to be easy and 'streamlined' (dumbed down / idiot-proof / button awesome) so -other than perhaps in production value- PC gamers were just getting worse games than they were getting before. I think it's still somewhat true that the industry views console gamers as dim-witted and designs accordingly, but it's not as bad as it used to be.
 
What helped blur the lines was Microsoft standardized controllers on the PC with the introduction to XInput (DirectInput did exist but was a lot less uniform and very clunky to set up) which was ideal for controller heavy games like fighting games. Alongside console having USB ports which allowed you to connect a USB mouse and keyboard for input for the game that supported them. Unreal Tournament 3 on the PS3 is one such title that supported this.
 
Black_Stride said:
League, CS2, Dota, WoW, Alyx, Tarkov, Dwarf Fortress, Satisfactory, Garry, ARMA, Total War/Warhammer, Anno, AoMyth, Civ.........
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Tons and tons of AA, niche and indie games that didn't get a console release

Only talking of huge multimillion sales figure, recent games and I'm barely scratching the surface:

DCS, Il-2, The entire Total War series, Crusader Kings/Victoria/Hearts of Iron, Day-Z, management games like Football Manager etc, BEAMNG Drive, Mount and Blade 2, Fallout New London, Battletech, Banner Lord, Valhein, V-rising, Warno, Command Modern Operations, Broken Arrow, Project Zomboid, Squad...
 
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