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[Red Rackham's Revenge]

I bought a PS4 for the exclusives and even so, I played far more GTA5 and Read Dead 2 than any other game. I was really interested in the Xbox One, especially the X, but I had zero interest in any of their exclusives besides Cuphead. The only thing that would have convinced me to buy an Xbox would be the UHD drive.

I know a lot of people too that bought a PS4 for the exclusives, and others that don't really care, but that's the system that all their friends are on. I would say that exclusives have a strong influence on console preference even on those that don't care for them.

Make of that what you will.

 

[ethomaz]

It is pretty easy.

You buy your console due exclusives.
After you buy multiplatforms in that console.

Win win.

Around 10% of PS4 sales are exclusives (~100 million) that ia a tie rate way better than multiplatform that sold ~900m across over 1.0k titles.

 

[Dee Dah Dave]

Exclusives are just one bullet point out of maybe half a dozen main reasons to buy a particular console. They are definitely a factor but certainly not everything.

 

[DaMonsta]

Lol yeah sure. It's just coincidental that Spiderman and God of War released in the same months that PS4 broke sales records. Clearly they only sold so many consoles because people wanted the console. Not the games.

Well you can see the overall sales of the game are only a small fraction of PS4 owners.

You think people were buying the PS4 for Spider-Man and GOW but then choosing not to buy the game? Lol

 

[Rolla]

Ask yourself this one question... When was the last time XBOX had an exclusive that captured mindshare?

I'm not talking about what passes as a good game in an XBOX OT. I'm not talking about "passion projects" or "gamepass will give it legs" types games. I'm also not talking about the B, C, D or team projects. Just an actual game where the broader gaming public went out and picked up an XBOX to play said exclusive game.

The painful reality and answer to that question is Titanfall.

They've had noteable attempts in QB and SSO but if you remove any bias the last game that gave XBOX a whiff of capturing mindshare is still Titanfall.

Which is why to XBOX centric guys exculisives have become a fallacy. They see how Sony has used exclusive ip into a litany of reasons as to why you need to pick up a PS4. So more increasingly they make straw man arguments against it. While at the same time, touting Netflix models as the future of XBOX. A service that gained a foothold in the market in large part by leveraging it's exclusive IP.

 

[DaMonsta]

God of War and Spider-Man made the top 10 NPD list on the PS4 without bundles, so this is a lie.

NPD for the month, has nothing to do with overall game sales.

 

[Roxkis_ii]

Let's look at this from another veiw. If people buy consoles for thrid party games, then explain the Xbox one x sells compared to the Ps4 pro.


The Xbox one x is the best place to play thrid party games, then by your logic, it should have sold more, as (what I'm gathering from the op) thrid party games are why people buy consoles right?

But the Xbox one x didn't outsell the PS pro, even with the pro being the weaker console. What else could have caused that other then people waiting specific games only available on one console.

 

[Wandering Leopard]

It is pretty easy.

You buy your console due exclusives.
After you buy multiplatforms in that console.

Win win.

Around 10% of PS4 sales are exclusives (~100 million) that ia a tie rate way better than multiplatform that sold ~900m across over 1.5k titles.

Agree. Exclusives act as the key "entry point" that gets consumers to buy the console in the first place, and having a good variety of exclusives attracts a variety of consumers.

It has an impact on brand loyalty too.

 

[turtlepowa]

Let's look at this from another veiw. If people buy consoles for thrid party games, then explain the Xbox one x sells compared to the Ps4 pro.


The Xbox one x is the best place to play thrid party games, then by your logic, it should have sold more, as (what I'm gathering from the op) thrid party games are why people buy consoles right?

But the Xbox one x didn't outsell the PS pro, even with the pro being the weaker console. What else could have caused that other then people waiting specific games only available on one console.

Pretty simple. Most important thing at the start of a gen: Price. After a few months: What your friends have > everthing else
If you play buying a console month/years after the start, the first thing you do is asking your friends what they already got since you want ro play together with them, trade games etc.

 

[DaMonsta]

Let's look at this from another veiw. If people buy consoles for thrid party games, then explain the Xbox one x sells compared to the Ps4 pro.


The Xbox one x is the best place to play thrid party games, then by your logic, it should have sold more, as (what I'm gathering from the op) thrid party games are why people buy consoles right?

But the Xbox one x didn't outsell the PS pro, even with the pro being the weaker console. What else could have caused that other then people waiting specific games only available on one console.

I don’t know that we have exact sales figures of the two but the pro was cheaper, and “power” is another thing that matters more in forum arguments than real life

 

[ethomaz]

Agree. Exclusives act as the key "entry point" that gets consumers to buy the console in the first place, and having a good variety of exclusives attracts a variety of consumers.

It has an impact on brand loyalty too.

I believe the issue with OP comparison is that he only compares with the top 1% of the multiplatforms... exclusives are in the best selling games even when compared with multiplatfoms it is just not sold more than typical CoD, GTA, FIFA, etc (that 1% multi).

Most exclusives sell more than 99% of the multiplatforms.

 

[UrgeLoLUS]

Its really easy. I buy the console for the games that look interesting to me. Multiplattform games I can play everywhere so they arent a part of the question when deciding what console to buy.
Thats probably why xbox series x power difference doesnt matter for me and many other people. Being able to play a multiplattform game at 3% better graphics doesnt do much for me.

 

[Kumomeme]

how about we look at bit different perspective based on the chart OP posted...take away those top selling multiplatform game like GTA V, RDR2, CoD, FIFA from those consoles...then what's left?



but if you ask this question to Sony and Nintendo:

Spoiler

 

[Moogle11]

I only judge/buy consoles according to it's exclusives. The rest ist negotiable...

Same. Yeah, the multiplats top game sales charts for Sony and MS. But those games aren’t really driving decisions on which consoles single platform gamers are buying (at least between Sony and MS) as they can obviously play those games on either one.

Decisions are thus driven by:

1. Brand loyalty. Fanboys of course are going to stick with “their” brand, but lots of average consumers just stick with what they know and buy the same brand TVs, cars and game consoles.

2. For online gamers, they go where ever their more hardcore and early adopting friends they want to play with are gaming. For my circle it’s me and my main gaming buddy that usually buys round launch. Our more casual gaming buddies just buy whatever we’re on to play Destiny, Borderlands etc with us when their ready to get in to the generation was 360 last gen, PS4 this.

3. For people who aren’t buying on the above 2 factors, its just number of games they want to play in the platform usually. Thus exclusives and multiplats combined. Multiplats may be a bigger draw to buy a console period, but exclusives definitely factor in when deciding between Xbox and PS since he multiplats are misty identical. Nintendo is a nonstarter if someone is wanting all the AAA multiplats of course.

For me personally, exclusives are huge draw as Sony and Nintendo first party games are the best fit for my tastes. There’s only a handful of multiplats that end up in my top 10-20 games of the generation list, especially as AAA multiplats have shifted to so many being either online multiplayer focused or open world.

 

[Bogroll]

I agree, in the end, for most customers, exclusive games don't really matter. Just look at the PS4 charts, they have 2 FIFA titles in the top ten. 2!

I know so many people that buy a PS5 just to play fifa and nothing else! And since PS4 was the most powerful machine it was the best place to play fifa, obviously, that's why many people bought the PS4 and only fifa for it, that's it.

Fifa plays 1080p locked 60fps in gameplay on Xbox One and Ps4

 

[OneShotThrill]

Yeah, because after Sony's massive price drops it was the cheapest Blu Ray player on the market and people bought it like crazy just for this. It was the insider tip for every movie fan worldwide.

Not accurate...at launch it was already the cheapest Blu Ray player at 600 USD. The price cuts and software titles starting to blossom is what pushed sales.

 

[turtlepowa]

Not accurate...at launch it was already the cheapest Blu Ray player at 600 USD. The price cuts and software titles starting to blossom is what pushed sales.

And what do you think how many people bought a Blu Ray player for 600 bucks? Everybody has a limit, many people waited for a good price and Sony made that good price later on.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

Well you can see the overall sales of the game are only a small fraction of PS4 owners.

You think people were buying the PS4 for Spider-Man and GOW but then choosing not to buy the game? Lol

The overall sales of near enough every game on the market is only a small fraction of PS4 owners. So what's your point?

 

[Faithless83]

Ok, GAF, I know this is going to be a heated issue, but well... numbers don't lie.

I called this thread "The fallacy of exclusives" because people here seem to think that what defines the success of a console are its games and specially the exclusive ones; that most people that buy consoles are gamers (they're not) and that those gamers actually care about exclusives (they don't).

So... I want to start with some facts about the current situation in the console market:

• Xbox One sales up to february 2020: 51.51 million units sold.
• PS4 sales up to february 2020: 107.5 million units sold.
• Nintendo Switch sales up to february 2020: 51 million units sold.

Now, let's look at the top sold games for each of the 3 main console platforms up to february 2020:

Xbox One:



As you can see, only ONE of the top-10 best-seller games on Xbox One platform is an exclusive game (Halo 5: Guardians), which sold 4.92 million copies worldwide. That means that about 9.55% of Xbox One owners (best case scenario) actually bought at least one exclusive game.


PlayStation 4:



From the chart, we can see that only two exclusive games made it to the top-10 list of PS4 best-seller games: Uncharted 4 (10.33 million copies), and Spider-Man (8.76 million copies). If we take the biggest figure here (which is Uncharted) and compare it to the PS4 installed base, it means that only 9.61% of PS4 owners (best case scenario) bought at least one PS4 exclusive.


Nintendo Switch:



From the chart, 9 out of the top-10 best-seller games for the Nintendo Switch are actually exclusive games, and in the best case scenario, the exclusive that sold most is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (13.05 million copies worldwide). If we compare it to the Switch installed base, it means that roughly 25.58% of Switch owners bought at least 1 exclusive game. That's around 2.6 times more than Xbox and PS4 users.

So... numbers show that - except for Nintendo - exclusives and games don't matter much in console sales, considering that in PS4 and Xbox one the leaders are GTA V (a game released in 2013), CoD: Black ops 3 and the yearly Fifa (in case of PS4). I.e. "exclusives matters" is just a fallacy.

Since games (and exclusives moreover) don't matter that much within the great scheme of things, what would be the factors that could induce "the average joe" to buy one console over the other?

I leave that question open to discussion, since I don't have the answers for that (I have some ideas though).

Geez Uncharted alone sold more than GTA5 on Xbox but "exclusives don't matter".
Nintendo is the prime example of "exclusives don't matter".

It's all about games, exclusives DO matter. Otherwise Nintendo hardware wouldn't fly of the shelves like they do. Believe, it's not because of the third party support.

This looks like a rare case of "didn't read the OP". LOL

 

[DrAspirino]

Xbox fan trying to downplay exclusives with inaccurate numbers. Doesn't surprise me.

I'm a long time PC fan actually (since 1992) , so your ad-hominem doesn't work here.

 

[OneShotThrill]

And what do you think how many people bought a Blu Ray player for 600 bucks? Everybody has a limit, many people waited for a good price and Sony made that good price later on.

You're completely off man. When PS3 announced a price cut back in 2009 it had a new price tag of $300 USD. At that same time standalone Blu-Ray players were going for half that at $150 USD. NO ONE was buying a PS3 for a standalone Blu-ray player almost 3 years after launch. Stop it.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

NPD for the month, has nothing to do with overall game sales.

Both Spiderman and God of War were in the best selling games of the year, not the month

 

[DForce]

NPD for the month, has nothing to do with overall game sales.

Did you even fact check before making this comment?

 

[HaveButOneLife]

If it's a fallacy then why do console sales for that month increases when an exclusive comes out? Why buy consoles if exclusives don't exist?

 

[DForce]

I'm a long time PC fan actually (since 1992) , so your ad-hominem doesn't work here.

Yet you're in PS and MS threads.. Ah. Riight.

 

[DForce]

LTD (Life-To-Date) As of April 2019

This is not for the month, it's for the entire generation on the PS4.

 

[Hobbygaming]

Yeah the exclusives thing is overblown. Most people don’t buy or care about them.

Also consider lots of exclusive games “sales” come from bundles. Without those no exclusive game would be anywhere near top 10.

They are great for fanboy list wars but they don’t push the needle that far in terms of which console will sell more.

Exclusives have been selling consoles going all the way back to the days of 2D Sonic and Mario, Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo

When people try to change a fact that has existed for decades, you know it's to try to change the narrative

 

[LittleBigGamer]

NES vs Master system, SNES vs Mega Drive, PSX vs Saturn/ N64, PS2 vs XBOX/CG, PS3 vs 360(the latter was ahead when it had better exclusives), PS4 vs ONE etc.

Guess which console wins in sales every gen. The one with the most and best exclusives.

 

[Hobbygaming]

Let's look at this from another veiw. If people buy consoles for thrid party games, then explain the Xbox one x sells compared to the Ps4 pro.


The Xbox one x is the best place to play thrid party games, then by your logic, it should have sold more, as (what I'm gathering from the op) thrid party games are why people buy consoles right?

But the Xbox one x didn't outsell the PS pro, even with the pro being the weaker console. What else could have caused that other then people waiting specific games only available on one console.

Great point!

 

[StreetsofBeige]

NES vs Master system, SNES vs Mega Drive, PSX vs Saturn/ N64, PS2 vs XBOX/CG, PS3 vs 360(the latter was ahead when it had better exclusives), PS4 vs ONE etc.

Guess which console wins in sales every gen. The one with the most and best exclusives.

Not true.

Nintendo systems typically have the best exclusives with almost every game getting 80s and 90s scores. Yet their consoles sales are hit and miss pending which generation it is.

 

[turtlepowa]

You're completely off man. When PS3 announced a price cut back in 2009 it had a new price tag of $300 USD. At that same time standalone Blu-Ray players were going for half that at $150 USD. NO ONE was buying a PS3 for a standalone Blu-ray player almost 3 years after launch. Stop it.

Who was talinkg about 2009? Sony already cut the price mid 2007 and that was the time i was talking about. Even for the same price or lets say 50 bucks more of course you choose the PS3, because it brings much more value than just a player. You can say whatever you want, but millions of PS3s were sold mainly because of its Blu Ray drive.

 

[DaMonsta]

Exclusives have been selling consoles going all the way back to the days of 2D Sonic and Mario, Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo

When people try to change a fact that has existed for decades, you know it's to try to change the narrative

Numbers are there, a small fraction of people actually buy exclusives.

I don’t know what else to tell you. Things change.

 

[DaMonsta]

Did you even fact check before making this comment?

Fact check what?

Monthly NPD numbers don’t tell you much of anything.

 

[turtlepowa]

Numbers are there, a small fraction of people actually buy exclusives.

I don’t know what else to tell you. Things change.

You can just use another starting point for it. Sony said in February that they sold 1.181 billion games. By that time they sold 109 million consoles.

That means 11 games were sold per console. Actually more, because a good number of the consoles doesn't exist anymore.

If someone is willing to count the sales of all PS4 exclusive games (i mean real exclusive games and not just slightly made up PS3 games), we may have a better idea of how good they sell compared to the 3rd parties.

 

[Hobbygaming]

The overall sales of near enough every game on the market is only a small fraction of PS4 owners. So what's your point?

This. How many multiplats sold better than Uncharted 4's 16 million, Spider-man's 13 million, God of War's 12 million, Horizon's 10 million and on 1 platform at that

Most multiplats have sold less than these games. Only a few like the Call of Duty's, GTA 5, The Witcher 3, etc have sold more this generation when there has been thousands of releases

 

[DaMonsta]

The overall sales of near enough every game on the market is only a small fraction of PS4 owners. So what's your point?

It would be silly to take one publisher or games and claim it’s what’s “selling” consoles”

Don’t see anyone on these forums talking about how Activision or EA “sells consoles”

 

[ksdixon]

Controller, operating system menu layout, speed of access (menu slowdown/Game loading), wider content accessibility (psvr/back compatiblity), and finally subscription services (PSNow/GP)

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

You can just use another starting point for it. Sony said in February that they sold 1.181 billion games. By that time they sold 109 million consoles.

That means 11 games were sold per console. Actually more, because a good number of the consoles don't exist anymore.
If someone is willing to count the sales of all PS4 exclusive games sales number, we may have a better idea of how good they sell compared to the 3rd parties.

What good does that do? There are countless more third party games compared to exclusives. Obviously the overall number is going to be higher. What a pointless metric

 

[DForce]

Fact check what?

Monthly NPD numbers don’t tell you much of anything.

I just posted LTD numbers for the PS4. You said they were only for the month, but it was for the entire generation.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

It would be silly to take one publisher or games and claim it’s what’s “selling” consoles”

Don’t see anyone on these forums talking about how Activision or EA “sells consoles”

Is anyone claiming third party games don't sell consoles? They do, just like exclusives sell consoles.

 

[turtlepowa]

This. How many multiplats sold better than Uncharted 4's 16 million, Spider-man's 13 million, God of War's 12 million, Horizon's 10 million and on 1 platform at that

Most multiplats have sold less than these games. Only a few like the Call of Duty's, GTA 5, etc have sold more

Think of how many tons of money Sony had to put into the marketing to get those numbers. If i remember correctly they nearly spent 10 million dollars for just one Spider Man spot in the USA and they did this worldwide also with advertising posters and so on. And also remember all the bundles. Not many 3rd party games have that much advertising.

 

[Hobbygaming]

Numbers are there, a small fraction of people actually buy exclusives.

I don’t know what else to tell you. Things change.

Those big AAA exclusives often outsell multiplatform games that are on multiple consoles

 

[DaMonsta]

Those big AAA exclusives often outsell multiplatform games that are on multiple consoles

Very few of them do.

 

[DaMonsta]

I just posted LTD numbers for the PS4. You said they were only for the month, but it was for the entire generation.

The person that I quoted originally was talking about the month.

 

[turtlepowa]

What good does that do? There are countless more third party games compared to exclusives. Obviously the overall number is going to be higher. What a pointless metric

But not many high budget AAAs that most people buy, so it would be very interesting since many Sony games are also high budget AAAs.

 

[DaMonsta]

Is anyone claiming third party games don't sell consoles? They do, just like exclusives sell consoles.

Never seen a thread/post talking about how Activision sells consoles.

We see what the best selling games are, why don’t we have countless threads and posts about them like we do “exclusives”??

 

[Hobbygaming]

Think of how many tons of money Sony had to put into the marketing to get those numbers. If i remember correctly they nearly spent 10 million dollars for just one Spider Man spot in the USA and they did this worldwide also with advertising posters and so on. And also remember all the bundles. Not many 3rd party games have that much advertising.

Spider-man also made over $180,000,000 in just 3 days and that's only at 3 million sales. The game sold over 13 million. They made every dime back and a boatload more

 

[Moogle11]

Not true.

Nintendo systems typically have the best exclusives with almost every game getting 80s and 90s scores. Yet their consoles sales are hit and miss pending which generation it is.

That's just because Nintendo didn't adapt when the market moved to being western dominated. Sony jumped on the story driven stuff right from the PS1 and getting third party exclusives like FF7, MGS, etc., focused on realistic art style, FMV cutscenes in games (the sports highlights in the football games was a wow factor among my friends back in teh day) etc. and then eventually focused in on story-driven stuff with their first party games. MS came on the scene and jumped all over online gaming right when it was taking off and especially focused online shooters at the right time.

Nintendo never reacted to market trends and just kept focusing on their brand of family friendly games for the most part (with a few exceptions like Metroid Prime, Eternal Darkness etc.). It's kept them successful and dominate in the portable market that's huge with the kids/family market, but their consoles have struggled from the N64 on other than the Wii catching lighting in a bottle with casuals and former non-gamers (and as a great complementary platform for gamers--hence "Wii60 and "PSwii" being forum parlance at the time.

Honestly, all three platform holders have pretty dang good exclusives with a lot getting 80-90s review averages. Nintendo's just don't fit the mainstream as much. Just look at how much their games differ in genre/style compared to the top selling game lists posted for PS4 and Xbox compared to how much better MS and Sony's offerings fit those styles and genres.

 

[DaMonsta]

What good does that do? There are countless more third party games compared to exclusives. Obviously the overall number is going to be higher. What a pointless metric

No it’s not pointless. If people were buying PS4 for exclusives then it would show in the game sales.

We see it on switch, it’s the exact opposite of PS4/Xbox. Majority of games sold are exclusives. 3rd party sales are low.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

Never seen a thread/post talking about how Activision sells consoles.

We see what they beat selling games are, why don’t we have countless threads and posts about them like we do “exclusives”??

Why does anyone need to make a thread about something that's pretty much an accepted fact? COD sells consoles. Fifa sells consoles. No one denies this, hence why no one actually talks about it.

Exclusives on the other hand. Their relevance to console sales is constantly debated. Hence why there are threads about it like this one.