What would be your platform of choice in a hypothetical future without exclusives?

[Summer Nightmares]

Hello honorable people of this forum! it's been quite a while since I actually started a thread here, I've been busy with work (different schedule this month) and playing The Witcher 3 with the intention of actully finishing it this time but I've been reading you and have a question:

There has been a lot of talk lately about exclusives, xbox porting their games to Playstation, Playstation supporting VR on pc, etc. So that begs the question: What would be your platform of choice in a hypothetical future without exclusives?

I've been playing on pc for more than 20 years until last october when I bought my first console (Playstation 5) and I'm pretty sure that given the choice Im sticking with it at this point of my life: simplicity, stability, trophies... basically everything that I care about is more enjoyable on console, so even if games are playable on all platforms I still buy them on Playstation like I did with The Witcher. I just enjoy the experience more, but what would you personally do? how would you keep enjoying this hobby?

 

[Gods&Monsters]

That future without exclusives sounds boring to me

95% of my gaming is now on consoles so I picked Playstation.

I used to be on PC for the longest time. Buying tons and tons of games but barely playing any because it was a chore messing around with drivers and settings, doing research to make it work, windows errors, etc.

I still have a laptop but that's it. I'm never buying a gaming PC again.

I still have tons of physical PC games in storage and I trashed many throughout the years

 

[Eggman]

PS for controller and trophies and my entire back catalog and friends all on PS

 

[peter42O]

Xbox. Game Pass, great refund policy, free cloud saves and the ability to use what is my best controller ever in the Xbox One model 1708 would be the reasons why I would stay with Xbox.

 

[Nimrota]

Mix of PS/PC. Sometimes I want to play on my tv on the couch, sometimes I want to play with kbm on a 21:9. No single platform gives me both of those.

 

[Bryank75]

PlayStation... have my back-catalogue there, trophies, used to the controller and the general console experience.

Online without crossplay is also better. Less cheating etc.

Physical option is also massive.

 

[Systemshock2023]

Its PC and I don't think its going to change for a long time. At most I will abandon desktop PC gaming but still replace it with a smaller build or a pc like a minisforum one. I don't like handheld gaming so Steam Deck its not an option.

Reasons: You can consolidate almost all the history of the medium on a single device. Your games get better down the line as you upgrade, and modding brings new life to them. The community creates new games, some of the most fun I had recently was playing MUGEN games, doom WADs or OpenBor beat em ups. I feel kinda guilty having to turn on a full fat desktop to play those, so the option of downsizing looks tempting in the future.

Partially because the AAA space has been disappointing over the last few years, and those are the games that drive you to get into the power game.

PD: Is nintendo that unpopular to be neglected to Other?

 

[Yeona]

In a hypothetical future where there's no exclusives, we'd have to imagine all consoles can run the exact same software. Creating a better console, with more bespoke features or higher-end components scares developers away from multiplatform games, as it makes developing a game for multiple platforms that differ too much from one another daunting -- see: the Switch.

So we accept that all consoles do the exact same thing, as imagining otherwise is a mutually exclusive idea to a future where there is no bespoke software, developed for bespoke hardware configurations, with bespoke features.

So, in that future, the winner is the platform produced by the richest company, which is the one which can offer the same hardware quality as the competition, but for a cheaper price than the competitors. This is called loss-leading -- when the aim of creating a "better" product doesn't have as much appeal or just isn't possible, then value shifts from quality to affordability. The more that console wins, the richest company gets even richer, the more it can loss-lead until there is literally no competition at all and most customers have their choice made for them.

In other words: It doesn't matter, because THAT console will obliterate the competition which will no longer have the capacity to bank on its creative vision for software in order to differentiate itself, so if we have a choice in which console to buy, it certainly won't be for long lol.

 

[Zzero]

If exclusives don't exist then consoles don't exist either. Phil is huffing paint if he thinks otherwise.

 

[Yurinka]

PlayStation, due to having the biggest and best catalog of previous generarions via BC or emulated games.

I think that in the future we'll see Sony and Nintendo extending their digital stores to PC, mobile and cloud. I think the hardware of consoles, PC and mobile will continue getting more similar and at some point you'll have Sony, Nintendo, MS, EA, Ubisoft, Take 2, Valve, Google, Apple, Tencent (until EA, Take 2 and Valve get acquired by someone) stores in all devices, allowing you to play games they had in all the generations both natively or via cloud.

Basically, you'll be able to play your games anywhere, including your back catalog from any generation.

I think cloud will continue improving latency and image quality to the point that for most people they won't care about playing in the cloud because they won't notice the difference, but local games will continue there.

I also think VR/XR will continue growing, and you'll be able to play these games there.

 

[KnittedKnight]

Without exclusives platforms cease to exist, and those with them, become dominant. It's how market competition works - at a very fundamental level - product differentiation.

No such hypothetical is ever gonna exist.

I'll gravitate towards the dominant platform and ecosystem that inherently will have the best/most, the rest of the other platforms will perish, sooner or later, and along with it your library "investment", or in PC's case, as it has happened in the past, not quite perish, but not matter either.

There is no such thing as as future without exclusives.... and the platforms that engage in that reinvention will reap what they sow, sooner or later, some sooner others quite later.

Not going to wish those platforms any luck.... will pack my bags to the sure bet, and consumers will too.

 

[Entropi]

I value my time, so I would rather have a console that I can jump and start playing immediately over a powerful PC where I have to wait for Windows to boot and troubleshoot driver issues all the time.

 

[arvfab]

You mean a future with a considerable drop in quality of games due to multiplatform development?

Easy. Whatever consoles I have at that moment, then going through backlog and retro. By the time I'm done with it (if ever!), all the - by then not-so-new - worthwhile releases will have been fixed/finished and very cheap.

 

[Gediminas]

Playstation. Controllers, trophies, pushing boundaries, near insta loadings is beyond amazing. Back catalog, great UI.

 

[Muddasar]

Main - Playstation
Secondary - Nintendo

And a PC for the rest.

This combo won’t change for me. Worked well for over 2 decades now.

 

[Joey Ravn]

The one with the Trophies

 

[Nhomnhom]

PlayStation and PC as long as PlayStation has physical media.

PlayStation also has some smaller advantages like more consistent DualSense support, being more convenient to connect to the TV, great way to watch TV with headphones phones, good hardware for the price, option to subscribe to PS+.

 

[Kx11]

 

[anonpuffs]

Pc for sure. I only got into consoles due to exclusives

 

[Danja1187]

Well it would be wherever friends go. But PlayStation since that's where my library is, preferred controller and I trust Sony to still offer a unique console that will differentiate from the rest.