“Real Talk: Exclusives are the best”

Exclusives are the greatest. Everybody knows it, even if the bigwigs and the naysayers of the day keep trying to tell us exclusive games are “anti-consumer”, “hurting the fans”, or counter to what gaming is really about (which is probably just a cover for a lack of great exclusives tbh).

Many of the best games of all time are exclusives, custom-designed to fit their native hardware like a glove. Three of the top five best-selling video game franchises are 1st party exclusive franchises. Four out of ten best-selling games are not multi-platform. Of course there’s a sales advantage to being multi-platform, if people actually want to play the game, but it’s a myth that there’s zero profit in exclusives. Beyond that element of the discussion though, there’s the significant matter of product quality: a steep hill to climb for people who don’t believe that such a thing as quality exists because everything is subjective, but I’ve climbed that hill and will die on it that many artists have worked hard and spent sleepless nights refining their craft, researching their field, trying to make real objective design decisions that affect the quality of the final product. I’m not willing to throw that all away just so I can feel good about “all games being valid”, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Anyway, imagine what Zelda would be like if it was multi-plat. It is clear that it wouldn’t be the beloved series it is now. It’d be something wholly other. Now we can’t know if that would be good or not, but we can rest assured it would be different than what it has been decades, crafted as it has been by developers working within the boundaries of specific hardware under a specific design philosophy occasionally peripheral and occasionally central to that hardware. And that’s alongside the tens of thousands of other exclusive games that people remember specific consoles specifically for!

Zelda is just one example but it represents something far more significant than you or I wanting to play an exclusive game or two on a system we’re otherwise not interested in buying. Systems go on sale, get refurbished, re-released, and so on. Exclusives are good games forever. Even when or if they’re eventually ported, they still bear their initial custom-fit design focus. Occasionally a port gets re-custom-fit for the new hardware it appears on (a remaster, new control scheme, additional features, modern facelift, etc.), which speaks to the importance of the game being designed for the hardware.

So as the next-generation of PlayStation and Xbox draws ever nearer and the debates get louder and louder over the flops and cores and the processing and the frame rates and the aesthetics, let’s not forget about the games themselves, the games which will sell the consoles, the games which you’ll buy the consoles specifically to play. They sell the system. Without them, you’ve just got two plastic boxes full of electronics and no real reason to buy either one over the other. That’s it.

In that spirit, I put together a little challenge for you:

How many systems can you name your favorite exclusive for?

Obviously, this gets harder the more systems that you’ve played. And we’re totally counting handhelds here alongside home consoles. Heck, even mobile, why not? NOTE: timed exclusives do count, in other words, if the game released exclusively on one system but then it was later ported to another system, you can still count that original system (ex: HZD counts for PS4).

So anything that wasn’t released as multi-platform and you’re going to look at the game’s original release date and platform.

If you have a hard time deciding what exactly your favorite exclusive is for a system, you’re in good company. I had a heckuva time trying to put together this list, but I did it and here it is. And it was fun!

Please NOTE: this is not meant to be a list of “best games”. If you take umbrage with my list, you missed that it was a list of personal favorites, and anyone can like anything for nearly any reason. There’s subjectivity.

My Favorite Exclusives For Every System I’ve Played

C64 – Creatures II: Torture Trouble
2600 – Yars’ Revenge
Intellivision – Microsurgeon
Vectrex – Mine Storm
NES – Super Mario Bros. 3
Genesis – Streets of Rage
TG16 – Soldier Blade
Game Boy – The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
SNES – Chrono Trigger
Virtual Boy – Virtual Boy Wario Land
Sega CD – Heart of the Alien
Saturn – Guardian Heroes
PS1 – Final Fantasy IX
N64 – Harvest Moon 64
Game Boy Advance – Metroid Fusion
Dreamcast – Skies of Arcadia
PS2 – Shadow of the Colossus
GameCube – Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
360 – Beautiful Katamari
PS3 – Journey
Wii – Monster Hunter Tri
Wii U – Super Mario 3D World
PS4 – Horizon Zero Dawn
Switch – Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Mobile – Pokemon Go
PC – StarCraft

And I’m at a loss for Mac or MS-DOS and I played a bunch of those back in the day but I couldn’t tell you which were exclusive to what. I also left out a few systems I’ve played but simply don’t have a favorite for, but that’s my list!

Now it’s your turn.

I CHALLENGE YOU!

Red formerly ran The Well-Red Mage and now serves The Pixels as founder, writer, editor, and podcaster. He has undertaken a seemingly endless crusade to talk about the games themselves in the midst of a culture obsessed with the latest controversy, scandal, and news cycle about harassment, toxicity, and negativity. Pick out his feathered cap on Twitter @thewellredmage, Mage Cast, or Story Mode.