Wii is king of exclusives

The Wii is continuing to claim the top spot in the number of exclusive titles, both in terms of the games already available and those yet to come. In fact, Nintendo has been able to widen the gap further, new data by the good people over at Gaming Target has shown.

While only three and two more exclusive titles have been announced for Xbox360 and PlayStation3, respectively, since the site´s last count in July, the Wii can boast about another 17 exclusives. The data was compiled at the end of November. Here are the numbers in detail.

Xbox360: 100 (+3 from last count: 63 released, 37 announced)

PS3: 52 (+2 from last count: 16 released, 36 announced)

Wii: 135 (+17 from last count: 75 released, 59 announced)

The increment differs slightly when compared to the numbers in my last post about Gaming Target´s count. This is due to the fact that they have removed a number of titles from the three lists, like the would-be Wii games ´Orb´ and ´Thorn´, a move which I argued for way back in May.

Here is their graph showing total numbers of exclusive titles, both released and announced:





This is the second time that Gaming Target data has shown that Wii is both king of the exclusives and gaining at an impressive pace which is leaving the competition far behind. In fact, within weeks, Wii should boast more exclusives than the other two consoles combined. As in July, though, Gaming Target wisely comments on the need to balance quantity with quality.

In light of the latest exclusive lists, ease of development and console power are the prime reasons why a game is exclusive to one platform or the other.

The Wii has as many exclusives as it does because it doesn't cost $10-50 million to develop a good Wii game. But most of these companies are not interested in creating good Wii games. They're interesting in creating any Wii games they can because it has the highest install base and lowest barrier to entry. So that's why the system has been flooded with such stellar titles as Balls of Fury (which scored a 14 on Metacritic) and Anubis II (which scored a 19).

But this flood of titles is also producing a mountain of titles that many people find pretty good and a mountain more in development which show some promise. And this was the secret to the PS2's success. It had a lot of games, of which many were terrible, but it also had a mountain of classics and a bigger mountain of games that were just OK. And their ridiculous number fueled system sales. But completely aside from this, other developer are interested in using the tools of the Wii to create some truly unique games (for example, Will Wright's Spore). The Wii is clearly carving its own niche.

I absolutely agree. Many people who bought a PlayStation2 last-gen did so pointing to the sheer amount of games available. However, if they had not found the games they actually bought satisfactory, they would not have recommended the system to others.

This very mechanic - a tightrope walk between quantity and quality - seems to be working for the Wii in this console generation. From ´Carnival Games´ to ´Resident Evil 4´ and from ´Dewy's Adventure´ to ´Metroid Prime 3: Corruption´, the Wii boasts the biggest and most diverse portfolio of exclusives, with a few rotten eggs, but enough games that are sufficient and some which are outstanding.

The Xbox360 may come a close second in terms of quantity and quality. But, as this Reuters article suggests, the same certainly cannot be said about the PlayStation3.

A year after its release, only two PS3 games have sold more than 1 million copies, a benchmark of financial success for a big-budget game. The 7-year-old PlayStation 2 had nearly 100 games sell more than a million copies.

Top next-generation video games cost between $10 million and $50 million, according to IDC videogame analyst Billy Pidgeon. That means publishers must hedge their bets by going onto as many platforms as possible.

"You might be able to weather one title coming in at 500,000 in sales," said Pidgeon. "But two or three failures like that and even big publishers are going to be hurting."

The article entitled ´"Metal Gear Solid 4" last of the great exclusives?´ suggests that publishers are increasingly reluctant to commit their resources to exclusives for any system. I disagree with regard to the Wii and I believe the above data clearly proves my point.

As far as ´Metal Gear Solid 4´ is concerned, though, I would like to go on record again stating that the game is sure to be released for Xbox360. And don´t just take my word for it. From Konami executives to Hideo Kojima himself, there have been unambiguous signs that Konami cannot afford to publish their most prized asset on a system that is trailing the competition.

As far as exclusives are concerned, the PS3 is stuck in a downward spiral of lagging hardware sales causing less exclusives causing lagging hardware sales. For the Wii, the opposite is true.

Source: Gaming Target