PC no longer gets big exclusives I’ve realised

If you want exclusives, you need to go to a Nintendo platform. It is still a thing. But you should really ask yourself why you would want exclusives in the first place.
Isn't it great that you and others can play games on the platform of your choice? Games have become much more expensive to make, and developers want to recoup those costs by releasing their games on multiple platforms and securing funding for their next project.
The fact that PC games appear on consoles or vice versa doesn't mean the experience is exactly the same. Personally, I really enjoy the higher framerates (60+) and better textures on PC.
 
BlackTron said:
Honestly I didn't watch the video I just perused the thread and looked at screenshots which seemed to get the point across, but yeah on my phone lol

Not sure what you're looking at but it's def not a slight lighting change in this game
Click to expand...
Lighting changes in general aren't very impressive from a graphical standpoint.

Textures improvements and texture additions is the good stuff. That seems to be a thing of the past these days. The difference of Crysis on PC and PS3 were what I'd consider huge, way better than just showing extra shine on some areas of the screen. 🤷‍♂️
 
I think it's fine to have games become more cross platform considering dev costs.

A lot of titles though run much better on higher end PCs vs consoles and in other cases, PC control scheme through KBM and modding capabilities make games much better on that side.

A lot of strategy games from Civ to Paradox titles to Total War, even if they run on consoles, it's not a great way to play considering all the things you need to do. Plus all the great mods are missing in action.
 
Over 50% of games in the OP had console ports back in the day too, lol. Of course they were best on PC just like many games today. If anything it's the opposite that's changed, less console only/exclusives with the exception of Nintendo (which also tends to get less of the multiplatform games)🤷‍♂️

PC was missing out on way more console stuff back in the day, from fighting games to Japanese developer games many things weren't ported at all or just sucked for the platform with barebones options, no real good control schemes or even controller support to make up for dodgy mkb controls.

It more depended on the timing than anything, ie, some of those games were in the time of paradigm shifts like online play or graphical advancements that consoles had to wait for their next gen counterparts to catch up, while games just a year or two before/after would have been ported fine🤷‍♂️

Like there was no Half-Life console port at a similar time frame just because Dreamcast was failing hard so they cancelled that port and then its PS2 port took a while longer to arrive, otherwise the Dreamcast port was where enhancements like the high def Blueshift model pack originated from etc.

Or how the offline consoles weren't getting MMORPGs but PC classics like Command & Conquer, Warcraft II, Red Alert, StarLancer, StarCraft, Duke Nukem 3D, Diablo and more had great contemporary ports that often fared way better than console-geared games ported to PC, like MGS or FFVII🤷‍♂️

Kinda how Switch was getting multiplatform games up to one point but the hardware gap was too great by the end of its life so it was missing out on more stuff & the Switch 2 will probably follow a similar trajectory where later games taking more advantage of home consoles/PCs won't port well.
 
Last edited:
As for OP, i dont know what to tell you when you're using 20-30 years old standards to make judgement in a vastly different landscape. Exclusive games aren't worth a damn anymore for platform holders when all the big money comes from live service titles. The only one who can pull it off is nintendo and thats mostly because their IPs are bigger than Disney's.

And from a player perspective, i dont know why use AAA games as a reference point when most are trash anyway. Heck, on PS5 people the reference exclusive not too long ago was Astrobot, a game that barely looks different from all the so-called "steam shovelware".
 
Ok, I personally couldn't give a shit, but this premise must be a joke. There are more exclusive games on Steam alone than every console library combined.
 
Only console players have meltdowns about exclusives. I have never seen one person whine about BG3 getting a console release, and have seen dozens of 10,000 word essays about Sony PC ports.
 
You make it sound as if its a bad thing. Exclusivity is dumb as shit. All games should be available on all platforms and fuck those that pull that shit such as Nintendo. Games can be easily optimized by talented people to scale with any available hardware.
 
Corporal.Hicks said:
Even if developers were to continue creating major PC exclusives, that wouldn't make it easier to shrink transistors and produce faster hardware.
Click to expand...
It wouldn't have affected how easy any advancements were, it would have meant 15-20 years of increased incentive to make them.

Corporal.Hicks said:
It was this difference in processing power that pushed developers like Crytek to release PC exclusives.
Click to expand...
It was pursuit of profit which pushed developers to release PC exclusives like Crysis. It was that established practice becoming unprofitable / suboptimal compared to prioritising console -which Crysis pretty much confirmed to the entire industry- that made them stop.

PC gaming was previously a significant driving force in hardware advancement, not merely a fortunate beneficiary of it, and it dragged console gaming forward behind it. As it exists now, PC gaming is incapable of providing much forward pressure itself, because consoles dictate the ceiling on development (more or less) and the console manufacturers are perfectly content with a pace of glacially slow advancement manifesting as a modest hardware improvement every 5-10 years.


Alexios said:
Over 50% of games in the OP had console ports back in the day too, lol. Of course they were best on PC just like many games today.
Click to expand...
There's a big difference between games being designed primarily for PC and ported to console, and games being designed for console from the beginning but being available on PC.

In the former scenario only the platform with the inherent restrictions (console) suffers from those restrictions, whereas in the latter both platforms typically suffer from those restrictions. The advantage of course is the developer only has to make one version of the game if they work to the lowest common denominator.

We did get a couple of interesting examples where they tailored versions (beyond just graphics settings) toward each platform, like GRAW and DA Origins.
 
Yeah, I used to think about jumping to PC because it had some exclusives, but that was a long time ago. PC exclusives now seem limited to indie titles, which don't do much for me.
 
Consoles are just PCs in a box now. Games are all made on cross-platform game engines that run on everything from smartphones to high-end PCs.

The only reason for exclusives to even exist anymore is so that platform/storefront owners can try to lock consumers in. It's not like the old days when every system had unique custom hardware with unique capabilities, and when we were still figuring out e.g. how to adapt FPS or RTS games to gamepad controls.
 
PC exclusives still exist (Satisfactory, World of Warcraft, Total War, etc) but it's nothing like it was in the 90s. The platform is more about the breadth of games available, not what's exclusive.
 
RetroGamingUK said:
That was my point.

The likes of @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.
Click to expand...
So this thread is a manifestation of a persecution complex?
 
Why should I prefer at all that other people can't play a thing for me to enjoy it? PC is now getting console exclusives too. Everything is getting everything increasingly getting forward. I get more games by getting former console exclusives on PCs, I lose nothing by what may have been PC exclusives being on everything.
 
I don't think games were exclusives on PC for the same reason as they are on console. For consoles, exclusivity was (and remains) about pushing hardware sales and securing a market.
On PC, games were exclusives back then because porting to consoles was not trivial. You needed to remake the games from the ground up. But whenever it was a possibility, it would happen. I bet all developers back then would have gladly put all their games on consoles if it was easily feasible.

So in my opinion, exclusivity on PC was more of a consequence than an objective.

Still managed to get a ton a great ports that I loved, like Dune on Sega-CD, Dune II on MegaDrive, Doom on 32X, Eye of the Beholder on Sega-CD, Hexen/Duke Nukem/Exhumed/Quake on Saturn, Quake III on DC, Dragon's Blood on DC etc...
 
Last edited:
I've been saying that for years each time someone comes up with the PC master race thing. It once was very true.
 
I don't care? The only reason I care about games being on other platforms is when they get ruined in the process (poor SupCom 2). Otherwise, I want people to be able to play on whatever hardware they have.
Please Valve port Half Life:Alyx to PSVR2, it will not impact my enjoyment at all. I hope the Dune Awakening game ports are quick. Get DCS working on the Xbox if you can. Nightdive please hurry up with System Shock 2 console so everyone can play a classic.
No 'magic' will be lost.
 
Last edited:
Steam recommended me the porn games for some reason. And what's worse is my first thought was, what kind of gameplay mechanics does it have? Ha!
 
Gamer_By_Proxy said:
Steam recommended me the porn games for some reason. And what's worse is my first thought was, what kind of gameplay mechanics does it have? Ha!
Click to expand...
They recommend games based on your activity

ucLtgRiNHEeDYENa.jpeg
 
Mister Wolf said:
We get exclusive tech. We used to get exclusive games because the tech in those games we too much for the consoles.
Click to expand...

We still get exclusive tech too.

Games like Plague tale. Indiana jones and more look so much better on pc. So many more. Now I have a PC in my front room its wild jumping from console to pc on a 65 inch tv. console just doesn't compare.
 
Last edited:
wafflecioccy said:
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.
Click to expand...

No argument here on performance, I meant gameplay design choices. There is a style of games made exclusively for PC that we are less of now. It's not to say they can't be done on console, but they're much better experienced on PC. RTS, point and click, anything with a significant amount of controls that are clunky when mapped to a controller. I miss when there were more of those.
 
As long as PC doesn't get those godawful 360-era ports that didn't even have real graphics options, it's doing fine.
 
EviLore said:
As long as PC doesn't get those godawful 360-era ports that didn't even have real graphics options, it's doing fine.
Click to expand...
The PS360 era was a dark time for PC gaming. Exclusives had slowed down to a crawl, but a lot of AAA games still skipped PC, came late, or the ports were very bad. Thankfully, technology still evolved rapidly at the time, so you could still get much better running and looking games on PC for relatively cheap.
 
It makes more sense to create games for consoles on a sales perspective. Anyway, nowadays, Consoles and PCs are pretty much alike. I see current PCs as always a step ahead of common consoles, for a price.
 
Instant_Classic said:
This news is literally nearly 20 years old.

The last big PC exclusive with a budget as Crysis in 2007.
Click to expand...
Yeah OP's claim that PC gamers "didn't realize" consoles now have the big PC games is ridiculous. As if this is some new revelation that hasn't yet been factored into the PC vs console war.

I can just imagine OP tossing and turning at night, struggling to come to grips with the fact that there are PC gamers playing Final Fantasy, Ratchet and Clank, God of War etc. when he finally came up with the ultimate comeback.
 
Gaiff said:
The PS360 era was a dark time for PC gaming. Exclusives had slowed down to a crawl, but a lot of AAA games still skipped PC, came late, or the ports were very bad. Thankfully, technology still evolved rapidly at the time, so you could still get much better running and looking games on PC for relatively cheap.
Click to expand...

Pretty much. During the PS360 era, Steam only had game releases numbering in the hundreds. Those numbers started surging as the PS4 gen started.

X960jh8qmaHHZeqS.png


 
Last edited:
Topher said:
Pretty much. During the PS360 era, Steam only had game releases numbering in the hundreds. Those numbers started surging as the PS4 gen started.

X960jh8qmaHHZeqS.png


Click to expand...
It's just too bad 90% of those 18K is shovelware.

I still think now is a better time to be a PC gamer than almost ever except for maybe the mid 2010s when GPU prices were good and mid-range PCs blew consoles out of the water. I know people lament the death of PC exclusives like Deus Ex, Half-Life, Thief, Gothic, or all those weird and unique experimental games, but the truth is, we get more high-quality games than ever before, and it's not like we ran out of unique games to play. Kingdom Come Deliverance is a patented PC exclusive, except Warhorse had enough manpower and budget to do a console release, so there was no reason to skip them.
 
Unknown? said:
Yeah doing a side by side comparison won't convince the average person. Oh you're using 4000% zoom? Maybe then.
Click to expand...
Yeah your right, just like there's hardly any difference between the Series S and PS5 Pro I suppose. Unless you zoom in of course.
 
Topher said:
Pretty much. During the PS360 era, Steam only had game releases numbering in the hundreds. Those numbers started surging as the PS4 gen started.

X960jh8qmaHHZeqS.png


Click to expand...
I think this shows that the wonderful thing about PC is that pretty much everyone can create and release a game there. There are open source game engines and tons of asset libraries available. Choice is what makes PC gaming great and it's worth missing out on a console exclusive here and there to have greater options.
 
Last edited:
Unknown? said:
Yeah doing a side by side comparison won't convince the average person. Oh you're using 4000% zoom? Maybe then.
Click to expand...

Why would anyone here care about convincing the average person? I can see differences in many games on PC and console without any zoom. Not all games, but in plenty. Certainly in RT heavy games. But even if frame rate was the only difference then that is probably going to mean 30fps mode and that alone is enough to favor PC for me.

ReBurn said:
I think this shows that the wonderful thing about PC is that pretty much everyone can create and release a game there. There are open source game engines and tons of asset libraries available. Choice is what makes PC gaming great and it's worth missing out on a console exclusives to have greater options.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. That's the beauty of open platforms. I think about games like Balatro and Stardew Valley and the roadblocks they would have to deal with consoles. PC makes a lot of games possible that wouldn't be otherwise. And I think the chart I posted reflects that and has allowed "indies" to become a much bigger part of gaming to the point that some can stand toe to toe with the big publishers.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Is PlayStation no longer doing exclusives?
2 3 4 5
207
2K
rm082e replied
I’ve Never…
2 3
140
1K
Bogroll replied
MS is proving day by day that exclusives are no longer a viable option to survive in this harsh industry
2 3 4 5
239
3K
thicc_girls_are_teh_best replied
Grubb no longer at Giant Bomb
2
54
1K
ChorizoPicozo replied
Are Retailers No Longer selling the Series X?
2 3 4 5
234
4K
HeisenbergFX4 replied
Top Bottom