With the recent news of Dragon Age: Inquisition’s Jaws of Hakkon DLC being timed exclusive for Xbox One and PC, gamers are once again at the mercy of the strategic business tactic.
And it’s seriously aggravating the community whose paid good money for their games only to be denied content because they don’t own the competitor’s console.
If you play Dragon Age: Inquisition on PS4, then you’ll have to wait an undetermined amount of time before you get the DLC. EA’s (NASDAQ: EA) signed agreement prevents them from even delivering a timeframe, showing just how far these exclusivity deals can go.
We can not discuss when Jaws of Hakkon will be coming on other platforms
— Mark Darrah (@BioMarkDarrah) March 23, 2015
Instead of creating their own exclusive games for their respective systems, gaming titans like Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Sony (NYSE: SNE) have taken to a new game: buying out the rights to have multi-platform games and content come to their consoles first.
The unfortunate future of gaming
Timed exclusivity first manifested itself with Bungie’s huge multi-platform hit Destiny. Sony signed a major deal with Activision (NASDAQ: ATVI) that ensured specific content would be exclusive to PlayStation platforms up until a certain timeframe, punishing Xbox gamers to no end.
Rise of the Tomb Raider is a Xbox One timed exclusive, and no one’s sure when it’ll come to PS4.
Microsoft did the same thing with Rise of the Tomb Raider, snagging a deal with Square Enix (TYO: 9684) and Crystal Dynamics that ensured the game would release first on Xbox consoles. We still don’t know when Rise of the Tomb Raider will release on PlayStation 4.
Sony even went so far as to snag a timed-exclusivity deal over No Man’s Sky once it realized how popular the game is in the gaming community.
Then there’s Titanfall 2, which is coming to the PS4 now that Respawn Entertianment is free of the exclusivity deal it signed with Microsoft for the original Titanfall.
It’s a bad and confusing business tactic in terms of consumer relations, as timed exclusivity ultimately alienates your constituency while also building shaky brand loyalty.
So why do it at all?
No Man’s Sky has gained incredible momentum, and remains one of the most anticipated Sony timed exclusives.
Why embrace timed exclusivity?
Console game exclusives don’t have the big payoff they once did. Back in the days of the original Xbox and PlayStation 2, Microsoft and Sony were both able to fire off a ton of first-party exclusives that helped define their brands. And since the games couldn’t be played anywhere else, it worked.
But in today’s industry, multi-platform games reign supreme and exclusives have taken a backseat. The big AAA hits are more accessible than ever, and you often don’t have to have any one system to play them.
Now that multi-platform is a secure bet, publishers are less-inclined to take the risk of developing a game on a single platform, considering they’d be missing out on the revenue streams from sales across all systems.
Sony and Microsoft’s first-party publishers are reticent as well, as they recognize the dynamic shift for cross-platform consumption as a clear threat to their respective regimes.
Every new exclusive is a gamble, and sometimes they can be multi-million dollar bets that don’t pay off, leading to crumbling sales and over-extending projections.
