I was reading EGM (I think) and there was an article about some dill hole who started a petition and got 1200 signatures because Devil May Cry was not going to be exclusive to Sony. I can see Sony caring, or MS caring, but why would a gamer care? He can still play the game on his playstation and now other people on other systems can play as well. But he loses nothing.

Is it just brand name fanboyism that makes this something anyone would care about?

Probably because it weakens the PS3 system they have invested in by having fewer exclusives.

Because many people are fanboys for a particular system. So they try and put down other systems/games.

Fanboyism is the main reason, but there's also a good argument that the game may not turn out as well if it wasn't designed for a specific system.

I don't see how it weakens the system, though. They still get all the games they thought they would, and may get a few others.

I could see worrying about the idea of your system failing without exclusives, but I can't believe anyone sees any of the consoles as about to fail. PS3 is not doing as well as they wanted, but it is still going to survive, obviously.

It gives us something to cry about. And a reason to own all three consoles.

The thing is, the PS1 and PS2 were successful largely thanks to big third party exclusives. FF VII and MGS were probably the two biggest games on the PS1 (the Tekken games were huge as well) and GTA 3 and to a lesser extent MGS2, FF X and other exclusive games cemented the PS2 as the winner last generation. That article was about the lack of exclusivity this generation (which makes a lot of sense with game development being so expensive now and the 2 systems being so similar in terms of graphical power). Playstation fanboys may be upset, but the article was really looking at the business side and it seems that things are certainly heading in the cross platform direction or in the realm of big first-or-second-party exclusives (Gears, Halo 3, Resistance, Killzone). Still I find it interesting that the article completely glances over the huge games that are still (for now) PS3 exclusive third party titles like MGS4 and FF XIII.

That is probably it.

I am a VERY casual gamer and right now only own the PS3. But I haven't ever played a game on it. It is just a good BD player. But even though I own a PS3, if I were to buy a system for games, it would be the 360 because it seems to have them all, plus Halo, and is cheaper. Maybe it is because the 360 has a killer exclusive that people bitch.....it means their machine is that less special, I suppose.

I'd guess it's 2 reasons:

Justify their purchase (over purchasing a different console).
Support/acceptance of their chosen console -- with the belief that excusives will sell systems which in turn will bring more games.

Actually wasting all that time porting to different systems takes away other areas of project development process to improve the game itself.

It seemed like the article said it took 10-15% of the resources of the full game to port to another console. That doesn't seem too bad. Especially for games like GTA, etc. And I would think that the technical stuff is done by different people than the development. Don't know that, though.

Exclusive games do tend to stand technically above multiplatform games. So, I can imagine that if you were previously getting an exclusive game that you really cared about for your platform, you'd be concerned if it was suddenly getting a port to another platform (especially if that platform has more installed units). At that point, your platform might even get relegated to second priority.

Apart from that, as the others said, you've chosen a single platform to invest in for your gaming for at least the next few years, so you want that choice to be validated. Having strong desirable exclusives available for your platform means more people will be wanting to buy into it, which by extension means you're likely to see more exclusives and multiplatform games in the future than you otherwise would.

I guess also, if your friend just owns a 360 and you just own a PS3 it would be nice to rub that exclusive copy of FF13 or MGS4 in their face - ok ok, have an excuse to invite them round for cookies and gaming .

I suppose that if all of the games that previously exclusive to the PS are ported over to the 360, that's not much of an incentive for more people to buy PS3s.

And then the people that do have them are stuck with a dead/dying system.

Actually all the reasons I mentioned come down to pretty natural human emotions, common to most.

Again, we're talking third part here. As long as the PS3 has Ratchet & Clank, God Of War, Jak & Daxter, Sly, Gran Turismo, Twisted Metal, Hot Shot Golf an the upcoming Little Big Planet, I will continue to be interested in the system regardless of what the third-party publishers do.

Yeah, with each console having some good first party games, you won't see them going away. Fact is, if it weren't for 1st party games, Nintendo and Xbox probably wouldn't have made it to this round.

If I were any kind of a serious gamer, I'd have every console. If I were just a fanboy, I'd only pick one. And if I were on a serious budget, I'd have given up fanboy status and gone with the cheaper since there are few exlusives.

Eh, I can understand why some gamers would be upset. I own a PS3 and I'm a bit pissed that they have nothing exclusive that I'm interested in. I'll pick up Metal Gear Solid and God of War but everything else I'll get for 360.

Yeah, I don't care. Hell, if I had my way every game would come out on all the systems barring first party stuff.

I owned all three consoles last generation, but have no desire to do that with this one. Devil May Cry coming to the 360 is fantastic for me.

Becauase if Devil May Cry went exclusive the Console War would be OVER and all those lame hole Xbox punks and Wiiners would see what tools they are and the owsome PS3 owners woudl still have their systems and everyone else would hae to buy a PS3 and admit that it's better and then ALL games would be for PS3 instead of those inferior lamewad systems but so what because all those other systems exclusives suck and it would be sooooo owsome LOLOLOL!!!!111 Forward this to 15 of your firends!

As long as Super Mario Galaxy eventually comes to the Xbox360, I'll be happy.

Here is something I didn't really consider. Did you buy the PS3 expecting it would have a lot of exclusives and now it doesn't? I could see where that would irritate me. I don't see myself starting a petition or anything, though.

Does anyone know if one system is easier to develop for than the other? I could see if all multiplatform games were made for one (because it is easier) and then ported to the other, and the port was not as good, that it would irritate people.

They aren't thinking about it that hard.

Basically, they wanted to jump on their favorite blog or forum and rave about how awesome DMC4 is on their PS3 and now all those suckers who bought a 360 should shut the fuck up about Halo.

They no longer get to do this, and that makes them crabby.

In a nutshell.

Because it then means that they spent 600$ for a shit system when they could have spent 350$ for MGS4

Nobody was saying the PS3 is a "shit" system. It isn't. I think people who bitch about third-party titles going non-exclusive are idiots; those who make or sign a petion about it are even worse. But people who console bash are idiots as well. Draw your own conclusions.