The Biggest Game of 2014 (So Far) is MS Exclusive-Why is that a big deal?

By Robert (A Virtual Duck), Week of March 3

Titanfall is not coming to PS4.

Nor is the extremely highly-anticipated game coming to PS3, Wii U, or indeed any other devices except Xbox One and PC on March 11th/13th/14th, with an Xbox 360 port due on March 24/25th.

But why is this a big deal? According to the Sony Defense Force, the game is "CoD with Mechs". Well it's actually CoD with Mechs, Wall Running, Hackable Opponents, Drop Pods, Frigates, Two opposing armies (The Militia and IMC), Futuristic Weapons, and on top of all of that, Multiplayer Campaigns. Two of them. 

Doesn't sound much like CoD really, does it?

Maybe that's why it's being hailed as the CoD killer, the big FPS of this generation, and is praised for having super-fast gameplay and innovative mechanics while staying true to the FPS formula. And lo and behold, it isn't on PS4.

I mean honestly, what AAA games do PS4 gamers really have to look forward to apart from The Order: 1886 and inFamous?

Nor can PS gamers play the resolution card any more. It was recently announced that Killzone: Shadow Fall's Multiplayer runs at 960x1080p at an average of 50fps. Yep. Sony lied. It ain't 1080p, nor is it 60fps. Hell, it's less than the 792p the Titanfall Xbox One beta ran at, and only just beats out 720p, which is supposedly so hated by PS players.

That means that the PS4 has not a single AAA running 1080p 60fps apart from multiplats. Xbox One currently has Forza running at 1080p 60fps. Hmm.

So let's get back to exclusive FPS'. Killzone's Multiplayer renders a total of 1,036,000 pixels at an extremely variable framerate averaging 50fps. It is upscaled to 1920x1080p.

Titanfall, at its release resolution of 1600x900p, renders 1,400,000 pixels at a solid 60fps. It is upscaled to 1920x1080p. Sucks to be you, SDF. 

But at its heart, Titanfall's gameplay is something we haven't seen for a long time: Innovation in an FPS on console. Sony have, according to "insiders" (take this with a colossal mine of salt), been chasing up Respawn and EA to get Titanfall 2 on PS. Microsoft, meanwhile, have been working to make the entire future portfolio of Titanfall exclusive to Xbox and PC after seeing the hype train go flying towards the cash cow. It's a battle worth fighting.

But why did Titanfall end up MS exclusive?

The SDF has assumed that Microsoft paid off EA, and EA looked only at the $$$ leaving Respawn in the dust. But that is wrong. It is so wrong. So very, very wrong.

When Respawn went looking for places to host their games, they pitched to both Microsoft and Sony. Sony said they would be happy to let Respawn and EA publish on PS for a cut of the profits, which is standard procedure. However, EA/Respawn would have to provide their own servers to do the AI calculation and Multiplayer hosting as Sony's few servers were reserved for First-Party games.

Respawn and EA quickly dropped Sony and concentrated on the MS pitch. Happily for all parties involved, Microsoft offered up their net of 300,000 Azure servers as a scaleable farm to run Titanfall, and all calculations, on. For free.

EA and Respawn jumped at the prospect, and without a payout of any kind agreed exclusivity for the high-quality servers the game would run on. The game would run with minimal lag, do AI calculations and send them down the line to the Xbox, and still release on the premier FPS platforms. It was a win for everybody except Sony, who are currently desperately trying to get Titanfall 2 for PS.

We won't see Titanfall on PS until servers akin to Azure show up there, and even so, I doubt Microsoft will let this one slip through the net. 

So the (so far) biggest FPS of this generation, and (so far) the most hyped game of this generation, will not be showing on PlayStation, and Microsoft has got the kudos for it. Well done Microsoft, you even managed to show up Sony on resolution and framerate on the "inferior" machine, which I am very happy with.

Keep on the straight and narrow, stay in school, be a good biscuit today, and Standby for Titanfall on the 11th (US), 13th (EU), 14th (UK), 24th (360 US), or 25th (360 EU and UK) of March.