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Palmer Luckey on exclusives: Sony is doing it too

Ever since the big exclusivity debate kicked off between the likes of Oculus and the virtual reality community, Palmer Luckey has been rather quiet online. Once a regular Redditor and Tweeter, he's been almost silent for the last few months. At E3 though he made a few statements, one of which defended exclusives.

Oculus has lost a lot of favour with gamers for locking a number of titles behind its Oculus storefront, limiting the games to Oculus Rift headset owners – or those who use an unauthorised hack. This has lead to many questioning other companies like Valve and HTC on their stance on exclusivity, to which they both responded that they hate the idea and would never do it.

This is the first time we've heard Oculus founder, Palmer Luckey comment so openly about the issue though.

bodysnatchers

What did that Facebook buyout do to him?

“You see Sony investing in their content the same way,” explained Luckey in a chat with TechCrunch. “They want to make things that take advantage of their features that they have in the best way possible. Over time, that’s how the VR industry is going to move forward. In the short‑term and the long‑term, it’s good.”

He did say that he understands the frustration some people have that they can't play the games they want to play, but denied that it was bad for the VR industry as some have claimed.

“When you’re looking at some of these other things, where sometimes you have devs come to us and say, ‘Hey, we need help finishing our game,’ or ‘we want to make this game bigger and better,’ we ask if those guys launched on Oculus first if we’re going to help them fund that. We don’t ask them to stop developing for other platforms.”

When Valve founder Gabe Newell was asked a similar question, he too explained  how Valve gives developmental funds to smaller studios, but that it doesn't demand exclusivity in any way.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: It really is like the Facebook buyout also came with a pod for Palmer. He went from saying that gamepads are terrible for VR, to saying they were great and treating the display hardware like a console was a great plan. It's bizarre. 

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35 comments

  1. Exclusive titles bug the hell out of me. Screw you consoles, share your games with the Master Race!

  2. Can we just not listen to what Palmer has to say anymore… he’s the Peter Molyneux of VR except without an actual product history.

  3. The PC Master Race has far more exclusives than all console games put together anyways, and besides, we got better exclusives than they do and a hell of a lot more genres and combined genre games that do not/cant exist on consoles. Dont bother looking into the their exclusives, play the ones you have, they take long time to finish when you add up modding and whatever. If you got the life time to complain you want console exclusives, after you have completed all the PC exclusives, which i doubt you will, given the richness of PC gaming, id agree with you on this one. No point, and waste of time.

  4. Stop supporting Oculus. Stop buying Rifts and support open platform. Palmer scammed all of you. Time to return this and make him sorry he did it.

  5. Quality of exclusives is kind of subjective, don’t you think? There are plenty of awesome console exclusives that measure up to the best of what PC has to offer.

  6. console VR is doing its own thing, its essentially like the samsung gear VR. to compare it to either the rift or vive is just stupid, hes pointing fingers to try to divert attention.

  7. I thought you were the master race? this sounds nothing like a master race

  8. Seriously why is anyone even listening to Luckey any more? The only things that comes out of his mouth are blatant lies and broken promises. He’s an obvious shill.

  9. bangarangbatmobile

    Um. Are you even paying attention? This doesn’t affect PC at all and it’s helm as master race. What it’s doing is dragging it down to console pleb-ness and is exactly why everyone is trying to fight it. No PC gamer wants this shit to happen, No PC gamer wants console tactics brought to PC. Any PC gamer that supports oculus mind as well just sell their PC and their Oculus and get a PSVR cos I am sure it’ll have better games than oculus has, hence why they’re trying to buy every game under the sun that has to do with VR.

    I don’t even know why I responded to your dipshit comment so this is me not wasting my time anymore.

  10. bangarangbatmobile

    No. Because each and every one of them could be better if they were designed for PC first. This has been proven over and over again when a game PC game is stripped of a bunch of stuff to make it “work” on console.

    One good example, starcraft and diablo for PC vs. the pretty unplayable console versions at the time. Just because consoles are catching up with hardware specs(finally..) doesn’t mean everything that works on a PC will work on a console.

  11. Sony is console. It doesn’t matter if they chose to go exclusive. But on PC? C’mon. There shouldn’t be exclusive on PC.

  12. I think you failed to understand what I meant in my comment, I understand you support the PC Master Race, I do too, I play Star Citizen, but come on man, do you really want exclusives coming to the PC market? Cuz that’s like what’s with the consoles now. Pay more attention to what people are saying next time, don’t just comment crap that doesn’t make sense.

  13. Got my HTC Vive at home. I can’t be happier with my choice.

    https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/111346222308061184/195081405720428546/5e4GYXO.png

  14. Good job. I would go for StarVR however, it’s more high end than HTC Vive, and I will have a reason to upgrade my rig next year.

  15. But, the StarVR wasn’t only for themeparks? I mean, StarVR will sell to us?

    (sorry for my english)

  16. Well they aim it to theme parks, you are right, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to buy it – it will be veeeeryyy expensive though, that’s why it isn’t aimed at consumers. I expect it minimum $1,500 if they are to sell it. And you will need 2 GPUs maybe to use it. I am willing to throw all that just to get the immersion of Star Citizen (which isn’t a theme park as many think it may be). It is the most graphically intensive AAA title ever been and I don’t mind if it requires multiple of the highest end GPUs to run 120FPS at its resolution. StarVR + Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog + Star Citizen = a gaming dream for me and most enthusiast PC gamers.

  17. Very interesting if they release it to the consumers. In my “road ahead” i’m waiting for the 1080ti and the Vive 2.

    I hope to try that headset in a theme park here in Spain, it looks really awesome. 😀

  18. yeah…there is one more from Nvidia called the “lightgate” or whatever, and they claim they have eliminated some of the issues that Vive and Oculus have. I will tell you which one since you have a Vive. Try to look for away in a game and at some point, look down at your hands. If you get a motion sickness, this is the problem what Nvidia is targeting. Their plan is to put another display behind the one you are watching in order to represent depth. It is really interesting, but I would like them to up the FPS, resolution, and maybe FOV if possible. That would end the motion sickness problems, i doubt they will share their findings and technology with others however…

  19. you’re an idiot. why waste your time on fringe business politics? you think you know what you’re talking about and its cute, really its very cute, but to someone who understands business its pretty clear that you’re clueless and its making you spew out rubbish.

    sorry but seriously, at the very least, do some studying

  20. Just because some genres work better on PC, that does not mean all games work better on PCs. Plenty of console exclusives are absolutely brilliant games that would in no way be suddenly a lot better when they would have been developed for PC instead. In fact, there are plenty of games I play on PC with a controller because it just works a lot better. In these cases the only advantage PC has over console is the more powerful hardware, i.e., graphics.

  21. apparently the optics are pretty shit and its quite blurry. Also very limited sweet spot. Hopefully they can fix some of this stuff before consumer release though. Also read an article today and they said they tracking was kind of sub par. I am all for 210 fov but not at the cost of everything else.

  22. I don’t expect this headset until 2018 anyway. Star Citizen is not expected to launch by the end of 2017, if we are lucky, they might, but seeing how they are moving and adding more and more features, I do not know when this game would be finished, so it would be perfect to launch StarVR in 2018 along with official Star Citizen launch.

  23. bangarangbatmobile

    Your post has no substance other than attacking me, bravo. You’re the moron that brings nothing to the discussion but a troll. “It’s cute,” you sound like an idiot. Funny thing about business is that valve is doing the absolute opposite and is killing it. Enough said. If you’re going to try and grammar maybe add the apostrophe to your “it’s” so you don’t come off as more of a moron than you already do. You know the difference between your and you’re so you get half a point.

    You obviously don’t know shit because opening their store to vive users would generate much more money than the few Rifts they actually delivered, while keeping their exclusives on their platform.

    Maybe you need to do some studying because no one wants hardware restrictions on applications and games. It’s been unheard of up until now in PC gaming. The closest we’ve come to it is Nvidia gameworks, which is a BS tactic too.

    Why waste my time? Because the more people fight it the higher chance their is that they fall back on it, but I doubt that because facebook is involved and they simply don’t care. They want the casuals anyway. They’re the ones that are dumb enough to throw money into a mobile game over and over for a few extra spins.

    Go back to your console kid, adults are talking.

  24. bangarangbatmobile

    Do you need more examples of games that were ruined to fit console standards? How about Skyrim and Fallout. I am not sure how you don’t think aiming for the best hardware on the market (PC) Further draw distance, better graphics, more graphic options, more peripherals available, more options for hardware, upgrade able hardware, 100% backwards compatibility, 60+ frames per second, anti aliasing, cheaper, no proprietary online access, private servers, FPS-MMOS-RTS all hands down play better on PC, customization, real mods. If games were focused on PC we would have more features, fuller areas-such as NPCS, foliage, buildings, bigger areas, more dialog, I could go on.

    Look at battlefield 3 on 360 and ps3 vs. PC. They had to release a whole new system to catch up to PC and it isn’t even caught up. Cannot have as many people on a server, smaller draw distance, less effects, 30 fps in FPS..lol

    I play plenty of games on my PC with a controller too, that doesn’t make a console better. I am not sure how that’s even a defense? I have a choice of controller, xb, ps, steam, keyboard + mouse, motion controls, Hotas, Racing wheels, eye/head/hand tracking.

    In your case, the only thing better on a console is something I can accomplish with my PC. If that is your only defense for console other than accessibility for kids, you’re on the wrong side. When I started wearing big guy pants, I started playing with big guy hardware.

    Let’s see how VR works for the consoles, lol. Best thing about it is they have to release a whole new console to make it work the way they want it too. Consoles are worse than dell with their pre made tiered packages.

    I will say it again, any game that was made for PC first is better than any game that was made for console first. Show me one, just one that proves me wrong and isn’t because it’s just a bad port.

  25. bangarangbatmobile

    I’m willing to bet by that time we’ll be seeing more of Vive 2/oculus 2 and any other head set that maybe on the market by then so this is really just an indecision. Vive will be a great product until we get headsets with monitor like resolution but that won’t happen until the other hardware catches up to the power VR is going to need.

    Some of us are impatient and know that this is as good as it’ll be and better than it has ever been so we dove in. Early adopters will pave the way for future HMDs and VR content.

    I am hoping StarVR works out the negatives that are holding it down but then again, we’ll probably have more headsets to choose from by that time, the more the merrier!

  26. I’ve consistently been talking about console exclusives, not PC exclusives ported to console, so I don’t see the point of arguing that of exclusives are better on PC than on consoles which is obviously true.

    So don’t mind if I don’t get into the kids argument again. It’s not 1995 anymore.

  27. you corrected me with incorrect grammar wtf? “It’s cute” -? you placed a capital “I” mid sentence? wow you must of blown your brain there trying to be consistent with mid-school literature.

    I’m just laughing here because of your four paragraphs of ad hominem. It’s (haha) quite sad that people respond so positively to sensationalism instead of genuine critical thinking skills. well, carry on living in ignorance; I don’t care either way.

  28. bangarangbatmobile

    troll. “It’s cute,”

    Begging of the sentence you twat waffle. God, you’re stupid. How long did you google the proper use of ad hominem and sensationalism before you could throw it into your meaningless paragraph?

    >I’m just laughing here because of your four paragraphs of ad hominem. It’s (haha) quite sad that people respond so positively to sensationalism instead of genuine critical thinking skills. well, carry on living in ignorance; I don’t care either way.

    What am I to argue other than the fact that you bring no argument to the table? You did nothing but call me cute and talk about your expertise in business. ha. Get the hell out of here. I bet you’re the only one that laughs at your pathetic attempt to sound smart and condescending on the internet and in real life, bravo.

    Hims using big words now and still not saying anything. Why are you even here? I won’t be responding to you anymore because you’re a waste of time.

  29. bangarangbatmobile

    Maybe re-read it but slower next time. Simply put, any game that is made for PC first is going to be multitudes better than anything made for console first. Plain and simple. That means any game designed by console limitations would benefit by being designed without limitations such as on the PC.

    I only brought up the ports to further prove my point that a game designed for PC with console in mind is going to be gimped from the start. Plain and simple.

  30. you really are a thicko aren’t you. Did I actually say I had an expertise in business? (sensationalism) I do, but that’s not what I said. I said YOU have a dearth of knowledge in business, which is the problem here.

    it’s too bad there’s no intelligence in your rebuttal; you seem like a keen debater as well. go and study instead of being an anti-intellectualist; spreading retardation through the internet.

  31. bangarangbatmobile

    Again, you’re typing words but not saying shit about the subject. Bye kiddo.

  32. So Sony is using shitty tactics then it’s OK for us?!? Idiot.

  33. To be honest there is absolutely no advantage that the consoles have over the PC. I really do not see any advantage, other than the fact that it is cheap in a short term (you don’t give $1000, you give $400). However you actually start saving from the first year when using a PC – cheap games, no subscription fees to play online…just with that, for the whole console generation you end up paying $3000+, but comparing this to PC, you play HALF, you get more games, you get better quality games overall, modding and a lot of backwards compatibility (I doubt you can play ALL PS1, PS2, PS3 games on PS4, can you?) – you can play all games on PC, even the ones back from the 90s! I can go on forever, but again, whatever you try to argue, and ALL the features you have on console, you also have on PC, even better working. I think the only thing you might wanna go into deep discussion about is those exclusives, but I just accepted that I will ignore and play whatever better exclusives come out. Why would I buy a console to play a game like Uncharted or the Last of Us? There are games like those on PC which are far better. I look at majority of games vs the few.

    But just to tell you, since you already might think i am a crazy PC fan boy from that PCMR, – life is not a spreadsheet! Play whatever you like…

  34. All that is true, but not for the average gamer I think. But then, nobody knows who the average gamer is and how much s/he spends, so any discussion on the costs of a generation and the benefits are somewhat lost. All I can say is that people like my brother, who primarily play FIFA on the couch with a group of friends, don’t have any use for a powerful PC. And they certainly don’t spend on overage over 300 a year on games and gaming.

  35. Same can be said for the people playing CSGO, TF2 and League of Legends. Unfortunately there are many more casual gamers than hardcore gamers put together, and no matter how much people complain, if we “burn” (i don’t mean it literally of what the word means) the casual gamer community, the whole gaming industry will take a massive hit – we don’t want that. So perhaps is best way to take some of those casual gamers on to the “next level” by showing them more and more fun games that exist beyond of what they are currently enjoy playing, and then they’d choose what they like – either stick with what they’ve been doing or look for more experiences.