I want to step in here and say I am NOT opposed to exclusives. I do help differentiate consoles and give reason to buy one over the other. My question mainly had to do with people getting upset something isn't an exclusive, or using as ammo in a fanboy war.
3DO tried the one platform to rule them all, "and in the darkness bind them" and it didn't work at all. The price of the platform was way too high. Also, having your own platform causes you to stand out as more relevant in the videogame industry. When Sega was making a console, the world paid attention to what they were working on and doing. Now that they don't, they are as relevant, if not less relevant, than Capcom or Konami, and certainly less relevant than Namco.
Also, by working the way it is now, companies making consoles get to offset their development costs by charging licensing fees on their console, which enables new technology to get out that would normally cost a lot more (see 3DO as an example).
