What are the reasons some games that are not exclusives never get released on PC and stay on console forever?

[a_moderate_nonconformist 2]

Hey guys, i am new here. I am wondering about why some games never get a PC release.

 

I know that companies like Sony or Nintendo want to encourage users to purchase their consoles. Therefore, they make high-quality exclusive games. And that's perfectly understandable! Of course, they want to maximize profits. I am not trying to say they should do something that is not in line with their business model.

 

But why would a third party company ever decide not to release their games on PC? Of course, there are some third party exclusives that only ever appear on a specific console. As an example, Metal Gear Solid 4 is only for PS3. I assume that the publisher of the game gets paid a nice fat sum in that case. However, there are many titles which have been released on multiple consoles, but never on PC. Examples would include Red Dead Redemption or Metal Gear Solid 3 (though in that case, the Xbox version appeared years after the game had been released on PS2).

 

I wonder - why would a company never release a game on PC, if it's already on multiple consoles (in which case i doubt they are being paid)?

 

That was a great pain in the A for me regarding the Metal Gear Solid series. I love that franchise, but unfortunately, only a couple of the games in the series have been released on PC. Therefore, i had to buy the Legacy Collection for PS3 to even play Metal Gear Solid 3, 4, Peace Walker, and Metal Gear 2. I hadn't used the PS3 for some half a decade. It's pretty confusing for me, since all of those games (except for 4) have been released on Microsoft consoles, but none of them is on PC. Which is even more strange, since the original Metal Gear 2 was made for MSX. which is basically an ancient PC.

 

Why is it that Konami would never release one of their games on PC? If Metal Gear Solid 3 appeared on PC, without any major bugs/shortcomings, with support for high resolutions (and preferably also high framerates), achievements, support for both k+m and controllers, i would buy it straight away. That's basically free money for Konami.

 

Why wouldn't they ever release their games on PC? Konami is just an example. 

 

[Patrxgt 18]

Well, because no one likes to hear, that PC port of game you made is unoptimised mess and doesn't has some effects, that were presented on consoles or lacks PC-specific options (like most of GTA titles on PC).

For RDR exclusively it's impossible to port it in the state, that it's on consoles, cause it was made on RAGE version, that is somewhere between RAGE 2 (GTA IV) and RAGE 3 (GTA V), so if Rockstar would like to make a port, then they would need to port this game to the third version of engine plus do something with mess in the files (because RDR was originally shipped without any file segregation, so all files are literally just in the main folder), which would probably take more resources than it's worth it.

[Theclaw135 4]

Sometimes there's basically no interest at all. UFC is an established multi platform franchise that has never received a PC entry.

[Fog13k 4]

A 1st party exclusive game is all normal, you can't get Mario on PC since it publisher released it to sell his hardware, on the other hand 3rd party exclusive are something really rare nowadays, but it was something usual in the 2000s, a lot of devs just don't know how to do proper ports and the PC platform wasn't that big of a seller for certain genres that only gained popularity on PC in the past decade (Fighting, Beat'em ups, J-RPGs...)

Also in the second half of the 2000s, PC physical market took a big hit and the digital market wasn't popular enough, not yet, so a lot of publishers started ignoring PC.

 

[Aemony 141]

Probably due to the costs involved in not only porting a game to the PC but setting up the whole pipeline that allows it to happen (be it to vet and contract outsourcing studios to do the job for them). And without a current presence, or insight, into the PC platform, it's ultimately a risky choice to take.

That's one of the reasons why I see a lot of potential benefits in stuff like Epic's exclusivity for a guaranteed payout -- cautious developers/publishers whom haven't released on PC yet don't have to worry about possible losses and gets guaranteed revenue regardless of how the game actually ends up selling.

Imagine if Valve implemented something similar a decade or so ago when they really started to rake in the money -- it's possible some studios might've invested in the PC platform a bit earlier. Though ultimately this is just a "what-if".

[Genetrix 1]

Several Reasons: To begin with, a port has to be profitable and the pc market was't (and for some isn't) seen as massive as the consoles one, and there's certain genres (sports, driving, fighting, etc) that until recent years weren't so popular on pc (in companies' eyes).

About mgs the port was made by microsoft and the sequel by konami themselves, the first was an ok port and the later was awful. That's because in japan desktop pc aren't so common and games on pc are relegated to niches. Today ports aren't so bad performances-wise but lack of KB&M or settings (Ninja Gaiden, Shenmue 3, Asha in monster world). Things like judgment controversy shows that there's still resilience.

Sometimes ports aren't possible/profitable due to the game reliance on console(s) specific hw/sf. Ex: acording to kojima mgs4 wasn't on xbox 360 cause it was too big (ps3 had blu-ray) and ps3 emulator proves that it uses advance features from the ps3 processor. And like first answer if it's too complicated to port from console don't even bother ('cause it's too expensive/is going to be bad quality)

Some people (myself included) believes that the worst period was from like 2007-2008 to before steam started to being a common thing (2011 or 2012).

PS: HD collection was ported to 360 but development between consoles ≠ porting to pc and ms consoles market ≠ pc market. About metal gear 1 & 2, although konami, hudson, hal, etc, developed for msx, sharp and fm-towns it was a one-time thing (pc-88/98 games weren't action oriented and fell on the strategy, rpg, vn niche), this was already cemented by the time windows pcs overtook the market.