8 Video Game Series That Changed Platforms

Summary

• Companies in the gaming industry are now more open to trading intellectual properties, although this was not the case after the 1983 crash.
• Several game series, such as Crash Bandicoot and Metal Gear, have successfully switched platforms, allowing them to reach new audiences.
• Exclusive deals with consoles, like the one between Bioware and Xbox 360 for Mass Effect, can limit access to games and their unique experiences.

The way companies trade IPs like Pokemon cards, you’d think that this was always the norm within the industry. However, back when the industry was recovering from the crash of 1983, companies were a little more protective of their first-party titles. Still, a few were keen-eyed and made the bold choice to move where the technology is.

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While some switched consoles and fell through the cracks, there were plenty of games that thrived after the big switch. Some games wouldn’t exist today without taking the leap, so let’s celebrate a choice few and see which game went where.

8 Crash Bandicoot

Crash Bandicoot may not have been officially exclusive to Sony’s PlayStation consoles, but he was their unofficial mascot for several years. Despite ownership being transferred from Sony to Activision almost immediately after the first game, the series stayed on Sony’s PS1 and PS2 systems until the seventh generation.

Crash Bandicoot: Crash of the Titans debuted on all systems in 2007, and it marked the end of an era. It worked out for him in the end though, because now there’s a whole new generation of players who can experience the magic and pain that is Crash.

7 Mass Effect

The adventures of the Normandy crew were a missed opportunity for those who didn’t have an Xbox 360. Bioware wasn’t owned by it but worked out a deal where it’d produce several games exclusively for its systems, so those who wanted to get their hands on the Milky Way Galaxy would have to wait until 2012 when it came out on PS3.

Can you imagine half of the fans the games have now wouldn’t have been able to forge the relationships made within the throes of battle? Mass Effect was a perfect storm of storytelling that still has difficulty being duplicated today, and you could argue that other games have better stories and characters, but it’s not the same.

6 Metal Gear

The Metal Gear series is a tale of two original consoles depending on who you ask, as older fans will tell you a tale of the NES, or Famicom, games that were difficult to navigate but still had a solid story. Younger fans, who missed the NES versions entirely, will tell you that the series started on the PS1.

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Despite the contentious origins, Metal Gear has pretty much stayed on Sony’s roster until 2011, outside the Twin Snakes remake for the GameCube. However, knowing what heavyweight title Metal Gear was, and still is, Konami knew that the best way forward was to finally spread the love of the Xbox.

5 Sonic The Hedgehog

It’s hard out here being a Sonic the Hedgehog fan, right? Nearing the end of the Dreamcast’s lifecycle, any hopes of a decent game were tossed out the window after Sonic Adventure. Infamously known as Sonic 06 by the fandom, it was widely accepted as the beginning of the end of an era.

Although the destiny of the Sonic series was in the air for the longest time, it seems that Sonic and company found new life on other consoles and in both 2D and 3D iterations. With great launches such as Sonic Mania and Sonic Frontiers, it looks like Sonic and the gang have a bright future ahead of them.

4 Persona Series

Formally the underdog of JRPGs, the Persona series found a home on the PlayStation in 1996, as the series (along with the mainline Shin Megami Tensei games), had found a place they could grow and experiment with within Sony’s PlayStation systems. Tales of battling both the hellspawn that have invaded your town, and learning to navigate your way through an exhaustive social life permeate both series.

Persona 1 and 2 became cult classics over the years, but it wasn't until Persona 3 on the PS2 that people started to pick up what the games were putting down as the fans quickly grew hungry for more games. Atlas listened, and now you can get all three 3D Persona games over all the existing systems.

3 Bayonetta

Conversely, everyone's favorite witch started her journey on both the PS3 and Xbox with her namesake game. Bayonetta quickly won over both new fans and lovers of magnificently styled hair with her hair magic powers.

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Sadly, this wasn’t enough to keep her on multi-console status, as Platinum Games and Nintendo hashed out a deal where they would back the creation of the next two games but at the cost of exclusivity.

2 Kingdom Hearts

Narratively speaking, Kingdom Hearts has been on a rollercoaster, and the easiest example of that is how many times the IP switched exclusive consoles. After the massive success of the first game, most would assume the next game would come out on the same system, but fans were oh so wrong.

For the longest time, if you wanted to get the whole story at once, you had to hunt down a PSP, GameBoy Advance, A PS2, and a 3DS, or you would be missing out on key story bits that would leave gaps otherwise. Luckily, all of these were eventually packaged together and found a (for now) forever home on PlayStation.

1 Final Fantasy

The first six Final Fantasy games made their home at Nintendo, and they seemed more than happy to stay there too; it was familiar, and the fans would be there. However, the limitations of technology soon put the plans for the first 3D game on hold, and after months of failed negotiations, Squaresoft decided to exclusively launch games on PlayStation, severing ties with Nintendo in the eyes of fans.

At the time, it was considered a highly controversial move, as both Nintendo fans and professionals in the industry felt that Square was betraying Nintendo and that they were going to flop. However, the risk paid off, and fans were treated to some of the best stories to come out of the 3D era.

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