- hardware exclusives may be a better business model, but consumers (at least a vocal subset) clearly don't like them
- Microsoft seems to be moving towards having all Xbox games run on pc so console exclusives may be on their last legs
- the vr market is relatively tiny, so splitting it up with exclusives will make it harder for devs to justify making content
- game margins are much higher than vr hardware, and do it may be better to have store exclusives rather than hardware (something steam is doing without the backlash)
-Early adopters take considerable risk when buying new hardware. If the market ends up crowning a different system king, your options are:
Accept that objectively/subjectively superior technology isn’t the only thing driving sales and adoption.
Or be a sore loser (which I’m not admonishing; VR tech is expensive) and complain loudly on message boards.
-I doubt that what Microsoft chooses to do with Xbox games in the future is due to regret or guilt about past decisions regarding exclusive content. Halo served them quite well at the height of the console wars.
-If I’m a dev making VR content and I am doing it to make a living, not just to make something cool to show my friends or as a fun project, my dream is that a VR hardware manufacturer pays a premium for exclusive rights. The hardware manufacturers can currently afford to pay more for exclusive content than they can hope to actually earn from the content, simply to drive hardware sales and platform adoption. I suspect it will be rough for developers, especially small teams, that are unable to negotiate exclusive deals. They will need to optimize and maintain their content for multiple platforms. And what can they hope to earn? <50,000 units in the wild, ~$25 per title Without an exclusive deal, it looks a lot like the movie industry. You either make a hit and do well, do really bad an move on, or worse, you do kind of okay, and then feel obligated to maintain the games and support the few that bought your game for the next few years.
-Exclusive content makes sense for many businesses. Doing it flawlessly, without causing potentially debilitating PR backlash is clearly easier said than done.
- hardware exclusives may be a better business model, but consumers (at least a vocal subset) clearly don't like them
- Microsoft seems to be moving towards having all Xbox games run on pc so console exclusives may be on their last legs
- the vr market is relatively tiny, so splitting it up with exclusives will make it harder for devs to justify making content
- game margins are much higher than vr hardware, and do it may be better to have store exclusives rather than hardware (something steam is doing without the backlash)