Are console exclusives good for the industry? For the consumer?

[SvennoJ]

Both good for the industry and the consumer:

- Exclusives can enjoy the protection of the platform holder instead of being cancelled at any sign of difficulty.
For example Team Ico, Polyphony Digital have been allowed to stick to their vision and take as much time as they needed to deliver their games. 
- Exclusives can capitalize on the platform specific hardware, like Astrobot and Zack & Wiki, but also enhance games with gyro controls, use of haptic feedback on the Switch, use of microphone/speaker in the dualsense controller.
- Exclusives can be better optimized simply because they only have to run on one hardware target.
- Exclusives can keep the price of the hardware down.
- Exclusives better retain their value, better if you want to collect or sell your games.
- Exclusives promote competition, competition drives up quality.

The negatives are not really negatives imo
(i) Reduced consumer choice and welfare when confined to an individual system VS Paradox of choice, too much choice leads to fomo.
(ii) Creates a fragmented library across multiple devices VS gives each console its own character through its library and hardware specific differences.
(iii) New entrants to the industry will struggle to compete with systems which have decades of exclusive experiences on-hand VS Doesn't that only get more difficult without exclusives? You need exclusives to convince people to buy your new device.
(iv) Loss in software sales due to being restricted to a single device VS Increase in sales due to less competition on the device. (See launch game sales)
(v) Hinders the perceived market value of third-party software VS Does it? Any examples?

Exclusives are inconvenient if you don't have the right system (or subscription nowadays for TV) yet it drives competition and keeps the cost of the hardware / subscription down. XBox ditched exclusives and now the next XBox is going to be a premium 'console' after already hiking the price the most.

Last edited by SvennoJ - on 26 October 2025