Why are some games console exclusive?

Money. That is a fair guess, in fact, having done no research I would say that it is a fairly safe guess. One of my personal favorites in this category is a game called Catherine for the 360 and the PS3. I would love to see a version of this game on steam so that PC gamers could give it a shot. On this topic for those of you that have a console, what is your favorite console exclusive title? What games would you like to see on the PC? 

I mean Halo and Gears Of War are Xbox exclusive and Halo being a personal favorite is sad to see to have to be held back by console graphics. Also sad to see that it was once on PC(though it started as a Mac exclusive haha).

Basically, neither console company keeps the interests of the gaming community as a WHOLE in mind. So, Halo could still be on PC/Mac, your game Catherine could be on the PC BUT both Sony and Microsoft (mostly Microsoft) throw money at game companies to keep the game exclusive to their platform so consumers will want to buy their console. Unfortunately this means that if you really like Uncharted and Gran Turismo, but you also love Forza and Halo, or some PC exclusives... Well there really is no sound solution.

 

A brilliant example is Alan Wake, when it was first shown off, it was the pinnacle of all games of the time, due to be being released on PC. Microsoft saw how amazing it looked, and how it would optimise PCs technology, "Oh that looks brilliant" they said "But here's a fuck-ton of money and make it Xbox exclusive"...

 

Personally I would absolutely love to play Gran Turismo 5 on my PC and see it optimise the PCs power.

Gotta say, I would love to play Alan Wake on PC! I never played it on Xbox but why not give it a try.

Because they have to give you Some reason to pick one over the other beyond "MOAR POWER!!!!"?

Bungie was WAY ahead of its time.. wonder what ever happened to the core team.

Cutting through the console hate, here is why.

The PC platform is a double edged sword to work with, trust me. Whereas the consoles are controlled environments in context of the hardware available. So on a development front it is easier to get a game optimised and working on a console than on a PC despite the more powerful hardware.


The issue of priacy is a difficult one as it is impossible to show exactly how much damage this does the the industry but regardless piracy will always be higher/more common on a PC due to how easy it has become to crack a game.

There is (as mentioned by Remington) the money aspect. Game devs need to eat and will much rather take millions of dollars than keep their pride. I do love how remington blames MS and SONY but not the developers or publishers who have to actively accept a exclusivity deal.

Now another reason is (from my experience) PC Gamers can never be pleased, ever. It doesn't matter how many features are addied some (not all) pc gamers will complain how is doesn't have Oculus rift support, or doesn't support 4K or doesn't have 4K textures. Take Crysis 3 for example. It looks amazing, and although short i enjoyed it, but PC gamers complained a lot about it being a console port.

A reason that i personally think is one to mention although i cannot prove it is user awareness and maturity. The PC gaming community when compared to console gamers is very mature and therefore aware of trick and scams. This means certain things that are done on consoles are simply not tolerated on PCs. Therefore there is a lack of control on the PC gamers. For example, EA obviously has some control over Microsoft (EA removing online passes a week before xbone reveal, coinsidence?) but EA cannot ever gain that control over the PC as no one really owns the PC.

My view, one day the PC will become simple to use like a console. Software that looks after its self, hardware that anyone can upgrade etc. Once PC's get to this stage and consoles are too far behind i think PC exclusives will start to rise.
My predication, 5 years time this will happen. 

Well said, to add consoles are better optimized for gaming.  A PC has to be optimized to do MUCH more than console and there is a problem with API and DirectX.  Console devs have to design in mind of 1 CPU and 1 GPU; while PC devs have to take in account Intel & AMD and as well as different architectures.  1150, 2011, AM3+, FM2, and backwards compatability with older CPU's.  This goes teh same with GPU's and the list can go on with HDD, SSD's and RAM.  I've had problems running certain RAM timings on RTS games.  RTS doesn't like tight timings and will slow down your system while FPS just eat it up and love tight timings.  So there's a lot to deal with.

Also, to add to the PC gamers will rag on consoles but it's funny to think that a 7 year old system kept up with a game like The Last of US where graphics quality is very similar to current gen graphics.  That's all because of optimization.  I love my PC and i'm a hardcore PC gamer, but i'm also a console gamer and a game developer.  I wish PC had more love by developers, but it'll be a long time until we get a gaming optimized OS or something of that sort.  Our hardware will never be 100% optimized because our OS will hold us back, API's will hold us back and so forth.  It sucks, but soon we'll need a new type of OS.  Maybe Linux will be the solution for gamers, or maybe Windows 9 will finally have optimization for gaming.  It's just really hard to tell.