It’s nearly a year on since the latest consoles were released with both the Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X breaking sales records despite a semiconductor shortage making them harder than ever to get hold of – with the time passing, it also means that the newest games will look to start releasing with big exclusive options. Gaming as a whole is on the rise, the biggest gaming platforms are seeing huge surges of new players with mobile leading the way particularly in certain genres targeted towards an older audience as some of these online casino options have become amongst the most popular, as such it’s no surprise that there’s such a huge demand for these newer titles that are being released on different platforms. There is one big hiccup and something that has been around for the better part of two decades, and that’s the exclusive release of titles on specific platforms.

There has been a recent shift that has led more towards an exclusivity period, often around a year after release where previously exclusive games would become available on other platforms, but there are still many titles that look to remain permanently exclusive and only playable on a specific device or console – with partnerships of specific studios and long standing contracts, it’s unlikely that these exclusivity deals will look to go away, but more attention has been brought to this recently.

The release of Metroid Dread on the Switch was a pretty big release and was a well-praised game too as Nintendo continues to support these fantastic gaming options, but some sites and one notable site, in particular, had pointed out that the game was possible to play on PC using an emulator, and that it actually looked and played better in some instances. The article in question came from notable games site Kotaku and led to a big backlash from players pleading with others not to pirate the game and to support the developers – having since put out a statement urging the same and suggesting their clarified stance on the piece put out but does open up some questions. Brand new exclusives will run well enough on the native platform, but should they stay exclusive if there’s the possibility it will perform better or be well-received elsewhere?

Exclusives don’t look to be going anywhere, but there does seem to be increasing reasons why there should be more flexibility, and the frustrations of players that especially currently can’t get their hands on one, not just both, of the newest devices, and may have to wait a much longer period of time to play these exclusives whilst shortage remain in place. "