The Importance of Being Exclusive

What It Comes Down to Is the Games…

Ridge Racer: The Lucky Charm of a Sony launch

I admit to more than a little bias when it comes to my console purchases. I’ve never been able to afford every new console per generation, and as such there is always a combination of factors that goes into purchasing one. When I bought my Sony PlayStation, I was coming from the Sega Genesis. While the Saturn shared some titles with Sony’s system, Sony had things that the Saturn didn’t (and I had no brand loyalty to Nintendo, having barely played any Nintendo systems since the NES). Tekken, Resident Evil, Ridge Racer, and later Final Fantasy VII, were big factors in choosing the PlayStation over the Saturn, which on release lacked Sonic the Hedgehog, Streets of Rage, or any of the other Genesis titles I was familiar with. Perhaps if the United States had experienced the awesome Segata Sanshiro ads that Japan got, the Saturn would have been more successful and enticing. The Saturn had Virtua Fighter, Clockwork Knight, and the for 7-year-old me unpronounceable Panzer Dragoon at launch. So I went to where the cool new stuff was going, and that was the PlayStation.

By the next generation, I had become a huge fan of Resident Evil, and it was going to the GameCube. And thus, I was going with it, to the first Nintendo console I bought new. I followed one of my favorite series to the new system. And while I was there, I enjoyed Metroid Prime, Eternal Darkness, and Pikmin, among other titles unique to the system. However, I kind of felt that Nintendo dropped the ball when they released the Wii – since Zelda: Twilight Princess was available in a perfectly serviceable version for the GameCube, what reason did I have to upgrade to the new system? Although I would eventually get a Wii, the fact that there wasn’t some new and unique thing to make me make the jump was a big factor in not getting one at launch.

Nintendo has built a lot of its fanbase on its excellent first-party titles. Do other console manufacturers need to follow their lead?

In the interim between the GameCube and the Wii’s release, I also acquired a PS2. While I was initially not terribly impressed with its lineup, the PS2’s exclusives had really taken off. Devil May Cry, God of War, and  Silent Hill 2 and 3 were particularly tantalising. Even the exclusives I didn’t like (Kingdom Hearts and FFX, for example) still had plenty of worthy features if you liked that kind of game. By the end of that console generation’s life cycle, Sony had won me over.

Now, I can’t mention that console generation without mentioning the Xbox and why I never bought one. This is quite simple actually – it lacked any notable exclusives, at least any that I had heard of. Halo was popular, of course, but as a longtime PC gamer, I failed to see the point of buying a console to play one shooter when there were plenty of quality games like Half-Life and Unreal Tournament on the PC. The Xbox’s flagship titles, Halo and Fable, eventually made it to the PC anyway. This was probably the biggest reason I never bought one – give me a choice between playing the same game on a PC or a console, I’ll choose the PC version every time.

These feelings carried over into the next console generation. Sony already had the hook baited with promises of God of War III and a new Final Fantasy (which, of course, was before Final Fantasy went system-agnostic and before I saw how goofy it looked). In any case, the PS3 had exclusives and, with the precedent set by the previous Xbox, I figured if any exclusives I wanted to play on that system surfaced, they would eventually end up on PC. This turned out a little different than I imagined, including an abysmal port of the first Gears of War and an untimely port of the tepidly received Fable III (which Microsoft released on the PC without bothering to release the second game). I would have liked to have seen Halo 3 make an appearance on the PC, but even without their flagship title jumping ship, the Xbox 360 seems to be losing exclusives at an alarming rate.

Will Halo be able to survive as a franchise after Bungie left the franchise?

While it’s still the most popular system for multiplatform games like the Call of Duty series, what games does it have to entice gamers to purchase the next generation of consoles? Unless Microsoft nails down more exclusives, they may be in danger of losing their edge. That edge, as it stands, is a large user base – but if the only thing holding gamers to the system is a multiplatform game like Modern Warfare or Skyrim, what’s to stop them from moving to Sony or Nintendo’s new system if there are no titles to hold them down? Epic probably isn’t going to go on making Gears sequels forever. Bungie has moved on from Halo, leaving the series in untested hands. As much as I am opposed to the endless sequel bandwagon, it does help to have recurring series and familiar franchises ready to go when a new system launches.

Let’s face it, new systems do a lot better when they have new titles in classic franchises as opposed to new games people aren’t familiar with. Sony made a big mistake launching the PS3 with new (and cookie cutter) franchises like Resistance and Killzone, which to this day I still cannot tell apart.  The PS2 had launched with Tekken Tag Tournament and Gran Turismo 3. Where were those when the PS3 launched, and how long did it take for the PS3 to take off? While its high price point was definitely a factor, I remember being distinctly uninterested in the meager selection of titles available at launch. Exclusives are what allows the system to show off what separates it from the others. Multiplatform games typically don’t bring anything unique to the table between the different system releases. Nintendo’s one constant, one of the central reasons they’ve been so successful, is their exclusive franchises, as opposed to Sony and Microsoft’s reliance on 3rd-party developers.

Do the other two console manufacturers need to follow Nintendo’s lead on having strong, recognizable franchises?

Page to Pixel: Starship Troopers

Robert Heinlen is one of the best-known names in science fiction; up there with Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov as some of the truly monolithic giants of the genre. Heinlein’s writing covered a vast array of ideas- ranging from Libertarian revolution on the moon (The Moon is A Harsh Mistress) to free love (Stranger in a Strange Land) to the subject of today’s post, infantry in powered armor.

The story follows Juan Rico on his journey from high school grad to member of the elite Mobile Infantry – marking the first appearance of powered armor in fiction. The Mobile Infantry are, therefore, pretty much the archetypal space marines. The Mobile Infantry go through training from hell like any good special forces unit, and go on a hunt for massive spacefaring bugs that have ravaged human colonies. Now, don’t think you’re getting off easy, reader, because Heinlein has a penchant for dealing out chunks of philopsophy.  And in this case, his philosophical bent is, depending on your particular interpretation; either in favor of serving the government in order to attain full voting rights, or in favor of a militaristic system where only soldiers can vote. Naturally, your interpretation may vary. But hey, even if the politics bug you (pun intended), there’s still plenty of exciting, large-scale arthropod extermination.

Starship Troopers was first turned into a videogame with the obscure 1982 computer game Klendathu, named for one of the planets the bugs operate from. In addition, there were a few games based on the (enjoyable if you know what you’re getting into) 1997 Paul Verhoeven adaptation, but to be honest – I’m going to go in a different direction from my usual Page To Pixel articles and have a look at the influence Starship Troopers has had on games in general.

You may have noticed powered armor is a popular choice for videogame protagonists.

Now, as I mentioned before, Starship Troopers is pretty much the source for the concept of powered armor. Suits of powered armor, of course, have been seen in everything from the Brotherhood of Steel’s bulky, Imperial Dark Trooper-esque suits to the sleek nanosuits in Crysis, to Earthworm Jim‘s Super-Suit. Powered armor of course serves the function of any armor, to protect the soft fleshy person inside, as well as fortifying and increasing the strength of that person. The suits may also have additional functions such as targeting systems (the Silencers in Crusader), means of travel such as jetpacks (the Jump Jet Troopers in Command & Conquer), or even Predator-style stealth as seen in Crysis and (naturally) Alien vs. Predator.

In addition, the concept of the space marine began in Starship Troopers, although the Mobile Infantry aren’t marines per se; the idea of spaceborne troops that operate from dropships began here. There were perhaps two non-videogame franchises that helped to evolve our modern concept of the space marine in the 1980s. The film Aliens featured a squad of Colonial Marines sent to dispatch alien “bugs”, and Warhammer 40,000‘s Space Marines are the 8-foot tall, ornately armored, two-hearted heroes of the Imperium. Perhaps not coincidentally, both are getting videogame installments concentrated on in-your-face space marinery.

Considering Blizzard’s typical originality, it’s entirely possible they came up with the idea for space marines on…sorry, can’t type that with a straight face.

The space marine is practically a videogame archetype. The Doom guy, the Terran Marines in Starcraft, Master Chief, Commander Shepard and the assorted meatheads of Gears of War all fit the space marine style to a T, and they’re just the tip of the iceberg. Halo is probably the best example of Starship Troopers’ enduring legacy on videogames. It ticks all the major features that Troopers contributed – you play a space marine in powered armor, operating from the Foe Hammer dropship…I don’t want to call Halo unoriginal (for my own benefit, as I know the internet will bite my head off for not considering it to be a completely original work), but the impact of Heinlein’s themes are quite clearly shown in the game.

Finally, the entire military science fiction sub-genre, one which encompasses numerous novels and games, was essentially launched with Starship Troopers. Even Star Wars franchise games like TIE Fighter and Republic Commando fall into the military SF genre, presenting a look at the rank-and-file front-line fighters as opposed to the more glamorous heroes the movies present.  So the next time you’re playing a game set in the distant (or not too distant, for that matter) future, and you’re dropping from a ship or flipping your ride over with the help of your armor-strength, remember where it all started.