The Importance of First-Party Video Games

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» 12 May 2009

The Importance of First-Party Video Games

Last week, Microsoft announced its intentions of acquiring BigPark, a video game development company, for an unrevealed amount. According to the software giant, BigPark's acquisition will play a crucial role in improving the output of Microsoft Game Studios. Its developers will be tasked to work on exclusive titles for the Xbox 360.

In lieu of the success that all incarnations of Sony's Playstation and Microsoft's Xbox consoles enjoyed by relying on third-party developers, game exclusivity has virtually disappeared in today's video game industry. Nowadays, the game space is typified by multiplatform titles and excessive development costs.

It's nearly impossible for third-party game companies to offer games in just one console if they want to turn in a profit. Console game collections are becoming more and more similar to each other because there's no real incentive on concentrating on just one console. Gone are the days when exclusive titles helped differentiate one console from the other. These days, you might as well get one or the other console, what with their game libraries nearly being the same and all.

Microsoft's planned acquisition of BigPark is a step in the right direction for the multinational corporation because this gives them more opportunities to develop in-house games exclusively available for the X-box 360 that gamers won't be able to play anywhere else.

The fundamentals of marketing dictate that creating an exclusive brand—in this case, first-party video games—is one of the best methods of differentiating a product in a given market. Whenever customers with a limited amount of money go out to choose a gaming console, they are deluged with a multitude of options. They can either buy an Xbox 360, a Nintendo Wii, or a Playstation 3.

Good games make the console successful, not the other way around. Atari had Pac-Man. The NES had Super Mario Brothers. The Sega Genesis had Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The SNES had Super Mario World. The Playstation had Final Fantasy VII and Gran Turismo. The Xbox had Halo and Halo 2. The common thread found in all these games is the exclusivity of each game to its respective console.

To be true, the platform with the most topnotch exclusive titles has the better chance of winning the console wars and beating its competition. Of course, even though first-party titles automatically benefit from console exclusivity, they won't necessarily have first-rate quality to go along with it. That depends on the skill and creativity of the game developer, and the burden of providing Microsoft with compelling and profitable first-party games lies on the hands of BigPark.