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A little over a decade ago, we were experiencing a new era of video games many of us might have been too young to realize. Sony built a name for itself off the Playstation, and a few short years later, its successor, the PS2, reached legendary status.  Nintendo created what are considered some of the best games ever on their Nintendo 64. Rumors of a Microsoft made console were only just beginning. This was the time where video games started to become a more acceptable form of entertainment in the mainstream world. This was the beginning of a time when playing a video game wasn’t as “geeky” as it used to be. More and more people got into it, and more and more people gave up the stereotypical idea that video games are for nerds. This was a time when exclusive games were a major piece of the picture.
 
I’m sure many of us remember classic games such as Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon. These were two exclusive titles for the original Playstation. In fact, this is where industry top dogs Naughty Dog (Jak, Uncharted) and Insomniac (Ratchet and Clank, Resistance) started to really build their reputation. Moving to a different genre, no one has ever forgotten Final Fantasy. Back when Square and Enix were two separate corporations, Final Fantasy began an exclusitivity streak on the Playstation onto the PS2, and the exclusive Final Fantasy VII is considered one of the greatest RPGs of all time. Nintendo has world-renowned characters that survive even to this day. During the time of the N64, Nintendo graced us with our first 3D Zelda game, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and is considered to be one of the best games ever by many gamers. That wasn’t all, however. Mario the plumber also saw critical acclaim with games like Super Mario 64, Mario Kart and more during his jump to the third dimension. Even Kirby and Fox McCloud caught some fame their way, and everyone shared the wealth in Super Smash Brothers. Even when Sega still made it’s own consoles, they had the glorious Sonic the Hedgehog. We might as well bring Microsoft into the mix. Their first exclusive title, Halo, made First Person Shooters more popular than ever when the Xbox finally reached store shelves.
 
A long time ago, exclusive games were what really made these consoles stand out. You couldn’t get everything on one platform. That may have been a good or bad thing, but regardless, it made each console unique and that much more worth checking out. Fast forward to the present day, and anyone who has kept up with the gaming world can tell you things have changed very much. Many titles that used to be exclusive, such as Final Fantasy or Grand Theft Auto, have expanded their range. Gamers are in an age where consoles must now compete in terms of features and content rather than which games they can offer, and a big reason for that is because they all offer the same games. Developers and publishers know that consoles, sharing very similar ranges of power, are all capable of taking advantage of their games. Why sell your game on one platform when you can sell on two or three and reach a greater amount of people? Ultimately, these exclusive titles are few and far in-between because so many of them were made by third party developers that always had the option to expand elsewhere and finally chose to do so. Now, most exclusives are made by developers wholly owned by whichever of the big three (well, for the most part).
 
Finding multi-platform games is as easy as finding water in the ocean. Exclusive games are far from extinct, but they are definitely less common. Though they are rare, exclusive games are still just as special as they were before. One might even argue they’re even greater now than they were before simply because we see them less often. Think of it as stumbling upon a treasure; but just how many of these treasures can we expect to have from Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft?
 

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