Exclusives - Bad for the consumer?

[Reasonable]

Moneybags said:
The companies try and compete for the best exclusives to push their hardware. You may end up spending more money but you benefit with higher quality games in the end. Unless your too young to get a job then yes, exclusives are good for the consumer.

Lol that's so funny.  As I stated in another post the fact is most exclusives do not push the HW.  Are you really telling me Dead Rising pushed 360 and couldn't be on PS3 - or even Wii?  Exlusives are supposed to be about pushing HW to benefit consumers but while a few do most don't.  Most are commercial deals that benefit the companies involved but rarely the consumer (again, I'm not including obvious 'exclusives' like Wii Sports in this).  To me there are two types of exclusive:

a) R&C, Halo, Wii Sports - obvious exclusives due to owned IP or intent to try and maximise for a single platform

b) Dead Rising, Bioshock, Lost Odyessey, the DLC for GTA IV etc. - no reason to be exclusive apart from money changing hands as a blunt marketing tool to try and force the purchase of a particular console

Funnily enough I've just realised that most exclusives that come to mind in the latter category are 360 focused - guess I should really change my post to say is it really good for consumer MS is using money to limit availability of games that otherwise would likely be cross-platform!  Seriously though I see no reason why (unless they fall into a) category above) that PS3 exclusives like Haze shouldn't be on 360.  Let more gamers have access to such games and make sure the true exclusives really use every bit of the console as best they can for their maturity.  Like Uncharted - for me it really seemed to try and use every bit of power in the PS3 and I'm sure ND will only try and squeeze more out of the engine going forward.

BTW at 42 with a large salary I could easily have all consoles I want but I have a very nice 3 storey house that has been expensively decorated and 3 consoles cluttering up the space below the TV is not an option for me purely on asthetic reasons.

(although I will allow a Wii in near future in the kids room where they can put dents in the wall without bugging me)