Love it or hate it, paid exclusives are an integral part of the industry. You're welcome to throw a tantrum or boycott the console manufacturers, but it's not going to change a thing: when we're dealing with (close to) hardware parity between consoles, it's the strength of the exclusive games roster which separates them at retail. Nintendo is obviously the master of exclusivity - they're notoriously close-fisted with their first-party franchises (when last did you play a Zelda game on your PlayStation?), but with things as they are right now it's clear that the core Nintendo brands aren't wide-reaching enough to carry a console. They have relied on their (admittedly fantastic) in-house development teams for so long now, no one is even surprised when there are no big-name third-party exclusives revealed at Nintendo press events. But that has to change. Right now, not only are we seeing a severe lack of high-profile exclusives, we're actually seeing third party publishers losing interest in the Wii U altogether. Perhaps it's pride, perhaps just stubbornness, but this reluctance to dip into that sizeable cash reserve to procure something spectacular from outside of their own studios seems absurd. If they aren't prepared to cozy up to the prominent developers to bring amazing exclusive content to their consoles, the least Nintendo can do is to secure agreements with the major publishers to keep the multi-platform titles coming their way too. This walled garden ecosystem Nintendo has built is not doing them any good right now.
Game-obsessed since the moment I could twiddle both thumbs independently. Equally enthralled by all the genres of music that your parents warned you about.
