Last generation, with the Xbox 360, in the face of Sony’s formidable lineup of exclusives owing to PlayStation’s great first party, and exclusive Japanese game support, Microsoft pioneered the practise of timed exclusive DLC- the practise of basically securing DLC exclusivity for multiplatform games for their platform for a certain period of time.
This generation, Sony have turned that around on Microsoft, securing timed exclusive DLC for all the most popular games. Sony did that with Call of Duty, a brand that was practically synonymous with Xbox 360 (arguably in part because it used to have timed exclusive DLC for Xbox) and with Destiny, among other games. But according to Microsoft’s Phil Spencer, timed exclusive DLC is a practice that hurts the industry, and should be discouraged.
“Paying marketing funds so another consoles base can’t play a piece of content doesn’t feel like growth,” Spencer said on Twitter, arguing instead that value added content like allowing mods for Fallout 4, EA Access, and backwards compatibility offerings are better ways of having ‘platform exclusives.’
While I actually even agree with the second statement a bit, I do feel the need to point out that the Xbox invented the concept of timed exclusive DLC to begin with– every major game from the previous generation, from Call of Duty to Skyrim, had timed exclusive DLC deals with Xbox 360, and some, including the one for Call of Duty, continued well into this generation. Microsoft do not get to criticize the concept of timed exclusive DLC, when the entire concept is of their making, and one that they were actively involved in until recently.