We've entered the 'deliberately missing the point' stage of discussion I see. Sony do this, Nintendo do this and MS condemned this practice. It's about hypocrisy. The weight of evidence that MS just take talking points and turn them unto PR stunts is so blatently obvious at this point that it's embarrassing. It's not even worth discussing in my opinion. I'll just wait for Microsoft's next 'opportunistic' Tweet or interview.

The game isn't even finished yet, it's still in early access and they don't expect to finish the game in 2017 anyway, yet it's coming out on Xbox. I hope they get a finished product.

3DO: Overpriced, slow, not a Japanese based machine so Eastern devs didn't bother

Saturn: More expensive than PlayStation, hard to develop for, fumbled release outside of Japan

N64: Expensive carts for third parties (why take a $30 loss on a cart when you can put a game on CD for a dollar?), third parties burned on old Nintendo policies

If Sony had to moneyhat, they didn't have to do it much because the industry practically fell in their lap with these conditions.

Actually. what you just said is one of the most stupid things which gets reiterated every time someone mentions the importance of exclusives. Exclusives are what distinguishes each console from the others and it's main selling point in choosing one console over another. If you like japanese games or rpgs, you'd probably go with nintendo or sony's current gen console. If you want to play a mario, metroid, zelda, smash bros or a pokemon game, you'd go with nintendo. If you want third party japanese exclusive games, third party exclusives in general or want to something like bloodborne you'll go with sony. If you want to play a xbox exclusive or you're a shooter fan, just get an alright gaming pc and you're good to go.

Yeah, but market leader generally gets those perks. Sony  never posed to not be for timed exclusives as they've been very aggressive towards Microsoft and rightfully so. Phil Spencer did say that he did not like unerhanded timed exclusive practices and yet since his time as the head theyve gone for timed exclusive after timed exclusive. They need to start investing in their first party. Its pathetic. As long as Sony remains the Japanese third party machine of choice they will always get the hot Japanese titles. There is little that can be done for them there for Xbox. Nintendo, perhaps, but not Xbox. Microsoft needs to really focus on first party for next gen because my.... have they been exposed this gen. If people didnt know about Microosofts first party then now they know. They shouldnt have to be sweating over a company like this. 

Exclusives keep mindshare consistent. Its the main reason why the Xbox sales have been dropping all year. Theres nothing to keep the mindshare up. Highly antificpated exclusives keep sales consistent over an extended period of time. 

So you're saying the Switch didn't get a sweet boost out of the gate with Zelda? It was a must have game for those on the fence about the console. The Wii U was not an option since it was dead. Exclusives don't count for everything, but they do help.

I think it's a thing that originates at the beginning of the generation: Sony won. They were and are consistently cheap, get their marketing deals right and their exclusive contents right. They chose to do Destiny marketing and that game really was a blockbuster. They even were successful with watch_dogs, funny as it is. The Star Wars marketing also was a big win in the end.

I said it before: Look which games are sold at most. It's the third party games mostly. The crowd out there doesn't care about forum wars or list wars, they buy the "big" games which are advertised to hell. Sony has the champions league deal for ages and thus is associated to Fifa, one of the biggest games to be on consoles.

It's good to have games like Journey or Puppeteer or even Bloodborne and Bloodborne was a success but how is the attach rate of Bloodborne? This site lists it at no. 40...

Yeah, Nintendo is just off in many ways. They decided to do their own thing and yes, Nintendo consoles sell mainly because of Nintendo games. It's also of no use to compare their hardware to the other 2, it's of no use to try to put them into the "generation scheme" anymore. They do their own thing and they do it their own way with their own games while the fanbase hopes 3rd party will jump on board with 3rd party games.

Sony has more brand appeal in the world than Microsoft by default. They built up a high level name. Blu Ray is what theyve been invested in and now Microsoft is following. Third parties sell the most, but there are dry months to the year and Sony and Nintendo were wise to relocate theier games to correspond with those months opposed to the old fourth quarter when exclusives could survive. In Sonys case its worked. Microsoft hasnt had much to offer and without third party help they honestly dont have much in the tank for the rest of the gen. Sony covers the bases that they need to so that when they make deals outside of themselves they have all of their bases covered. Microsoft can make a great console with great online...but thats it. How they get their games does not show off how great they are as a developer. They acquired Halo and they acquired Gears. These are their two pillar franchises and both devs have nothing to do with them anymore. Think about it.

P.S. 

Microsoft did a lot of anti consumer crap at the beginning of this gen.

1st strike: Force bundling the Kinect agianst the will of the consumer.

2nd strike: Possibly imposing drm that would block used game sales.

3rd strike: Their launch price was $500 vs a more powerful console which sold for less. 

Plus Sony makes more games and won back a lot of gamers last gen when Microsoft couldnt run with the ball because their exclusives are lacking and because of that it couldnt keep their mindshare consistent.