When gaming console manufacturers started releasing games and their characters that were exclusive only to their machines, they effectively started the console wars. This also forced gamers who wanted to play such games to choose between consoles if they could only afford one. This policy worked well for the competitive games industry for around 3 decades, but markets can drastically change over time, and the games industry is no exception.

Sonic (The Hedgehog) is not only one of the most popular game protagonists around, but one of the most unique as well. Few are aware, but SEGA's flagship console game character has been more widespread and accessible than Mario and Luigi ever where. Sonic is practically everywhere in the gaming world, and the thing is, Sonic is the most popular "exclusive" game character of SEGA that is "un-exclusive" as any other character can get. You'll find Sonic officially on PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and even Nintendo, something that Mario could never do.

Granted, SEGA has mainly stopped manufacturing game consoles since 2003, but the SEGA Genesis Mini is still being manufactured and sold, so essentially, SEGA is still making game consoles. It's a wonder that SEGA's mascot and flagship "exclusive" character is all over the gaming world for every gamer to play and enjoy. So now, gamers the world over, as well as the gaming industry itself, are both delighted that the major game console manufacturers like Microsoft (Xbox) and Sony (PlayStation) have both decided to ease the gaming industry into a non-exclusive console gaming platform future. SEGA must be doing something right!

The Exclusive Competitive Edge

Game exclusivity was created for the purpose of selling the consoles that run them. Looking back over a period of around 30 years, it worked. Gamers had to choose which games or gaming machines mattered to them the most, and one cannot have the best of both worlds all of the time. Those who wanted to follow "Master Chief" in his deep space adventures against the Flood and the Covenant had to go for the Xbox. Those who wanted to play "Kratos" and fight their way through Greek Mythology had to get a PlayStation, and those who would rather spend their time getting Mario, Luigi, & Co. out of dangerous and precarious situations went for Nintendo.

It was simply that way; each game console had a bunch of exclusive games that could only be played on it, and if a gamer wanted to play them, tough luck if one didn't have the appropriate console. Meanwhile, the blue running hedgehog was merrily jumping from console to console, unaware of its own exclusivity within those years as well.

The Industry Crisis Today

It isn't a surprise that the overall gaming industry today is going through a lot of changes. Some good, a lot bad, and these issues are currently being discussed all over the Internet, with more and more coming up each day. The game industry will have to make changes in order to survive and adjust to the times. Gamers are actively making known their preferences and asserting their rights via their support and purchasing power. If one will closely examine today's situation in video gaming, the major game companies no longer have the influence on the games that get popular and what gamers should play. Today, it's the other way around.

The recent slump in the AAA game industry, with so many current-day gamers going for Indie or Retro games, has provided a clear signal of how gamers today largely feel about mainstream gaming. To this, big game companies, particularly the major console manufacturers, need to adjust to the current market demand. Gamers want to experience being Master Chief, but they only have a PlayStation, and their parents won't let them use the PC. Ending game exclusivity will enable them to do so on the console that they have.

When a game can then be played on as many platforms as can be made available to, it doesn't lose, and the opposite happens as it is made available to as many gamers who would want to play it. The games industry needs this option now, more than ever, as the current president of Xbox, Sarah Bond, said that "exclusive games" are an "antiquated" concept. With both Sony and Microsoft working together to restructure today's console gaming market, gamers will be able to play their preferred games no matter the platform in the times to come.

The Potential Of Console Gaming In The Future

As long as home gaming consoles are manufactured and sold, they will continue to compete with one another in one way or another. However, the end of console game exclusives will usher in a new but probably recycled era for both gamers and the game industry. Before the so-called console wars, game developers and publishers ported their games to as many platforms as they possibly could. The more people they got to play their games, the better.

With no console platform restrictions, gamers will have more accessibility to the games they like. This will also expand player communities, as there will be more players to join as the games will be available to a wider audience. Gamers will have more choices with the games they may be interested in, although they may cost a bit more, as console game companies may have to offset the decline in their possible hardware sales.

The console games market will shift from hardware to software, as more focus and emphasis will be placed on the development of the games rather than coming up with another new console to again offset hardware potential loss. This will open up a wider market, and the games will bleed into both cloud and mobile gaming, as the objective will be to make them accessible to as many devices as possible.

As games become multiplatform in their delivery, it will open up into a much more cross-media and interconnected games industry where the emphasis will be on the games as an intellectual property that will have to be balanced and shared within the industry for accessibility to all.

Hardware development and competition would change as gaming consoles will have to innovate on features to make games play better, and not to exclusively own them. Competition will be more on aspects like price, interconnectivity, gaming capacity, and performance. A new kind of console war will exist.

From differing angles and perspectives, this may be for the best. It is, in essence, back to retro as it was really this way before the console wars ever came to be. Games on Magnavox and Coleco also came out on Atari, each creating and introducing their own versions (or ports) of the same game, although one could only fathom as many versions of Pong as could possibly be. Regardless, that was the general structure of the original video game industry, and moving now in the same direction looks to be the best move to change gaming forever.

Meanwhile, the speedy blue hedgehog continues jumping and running around without a care in the world. If you ask me, SEGA won the console wars!