As someone who has seen multiple generations of consoles come and go, exclusives have played a major role in their successes. The idea that you can only play Halo on Xbox or Jak & Daxter on PlayStation made consumers want both equally for what they were bringing to the table. Now days however this isn’t as much of a case as you are not just buying a console for the games, you are also buying it for the services. With that exclusive titles still exist, but timed exclusive deals are also becoming more apparent, especially since Rise of the Tomb Raider.

The Division is out today and it was revealed that it’s first two pieces of expansion DLC will be exclusive to the Xbox One version for a 30 day period. Is this really going to help promote sales of the game and the console? I have my doubts. It is a practice that is seeming to lock off certain communities for a time so that some can revel in their early access privileges. This in turn brings up the now silly stance of the console wars which people like Xbox’s own Phil Spencer has deemed silly due to the current state of the industry and everyone wanting to work and praise one another for the achievements.

I overall believe that this is a practice that will not last and creates more controversy than profit. Check out my full thoughts in the video and let me know what you think about timed exclusives in the comments.

by Dominic Coles | March 8th, 2016