This is a question I've been pondering quite a bit given the recent release of Final Fantasy XIII and the many inevitable "Wah!  Should've stayed exlcusive!" comments that have accompanied its arrival, but in all honesty, it's something I've considered rather often over the past few years. 

Can the exclusivity of a title, and the excitement/aura that can accompany such exclusivity, help a title to sell far better than it normally would otherwise? 

Now, I know this doesn't apply for a majority of cases.  For example, your random mid-tier game that would probably only sell a million would only benefit by being multiplat, and thus selling another 500k-1 million, but can a big budget, high quality game (that resonates well with the owners of whatever console it's on) perform better as an exclusive than it would as a multiplatform game, given the special attention often given to exclusives? 

I believe that they can.

An excellent example of this special attention I'm talking about would be the Halo series.  Much of Halo's success lends itself to the fact that the original Halo was an Xbox launch title, and to many the franchise became the face of Xbox, so to speak.  The franchise is tied directly to the Xbox name, and the franchise has only grown with each iteration (actual iteration, 1>2>3) as a result of both this and the inherent quality of each game in the series.

Another example would be Metal Gear Solid.  I don't think anybody in their right mind would've thought that MGS4 would manage to outsell the fan favorite MGS3, given the great disparity in the install base of the ps3 vs the ps2, yet it has managed to do so and then some, and the game continues to sell quite well to this day.  I attribute this directly to the fact that MGS4 was the ps3's first system seller, released in a time when the ps3's future wasn't very bright.  PlayStation fans latched onto the title as a "savior" of sorts, and the buzz surrounding its launch was enourmous.  The game had a massive opening week, selling to ~14% of all ps3 owners at the time, and its legs have held up quite nicely.

Similarly, fans latched onto a franchise called Killzone.  Whether it's because it was the first game to truly flex the muscles of the ps3, or whether it was the hope for another MGS4-esque system seller, or whether it was simply the fact that the game looked really fricken' fun, Killzone 2 became the darling of PS fanboys back in early 2009, and as a result the sequel to an average game at best managed to pull of an impressive 750k opening week, the best opening week by far for any first party title on ps3 at the time.

And then there's Gears of War.  Much like Halo and the Xbox, Gears stole the hearts of Xbox fans quite early in the 360's life, arguably becoming the second face of Xbox, right behind Halo.  The hype behind its release (in addition to a rather snazzy marketing campaign) helped the game to pull off a whopping 36% attach rate over the '06 holiday season, and the game continued selling for years, eventually topping the 6 million mark.

If you look at both the ps3 and 360, you'll notice that a rather sizeable percentage of their top selling titles are exclusive to their respective platforms (or are at least looked upon as exlcusive by their respective fanbases, as is the case for the first Gears of War).

Five of the top ten selling ps3 games are exclusive:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Grand Theft Auto IV
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Call of Duty: World at War
Resistance: Fall of Man
Assassin's Creed
Gran Turismo 5: Prologue
MotorStorm
LittleBigPlanet

And Uncharted 2 will soon coast its way onto that list, as will God of War III and Gran Turismo 5 once they're released.

Four of the 360's top ten selling games are also exlcusive:

Halo 3
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Grand Theft Auto IV
Call fo Duty: World at War
Gears of War
Gears of War 2
Assassin's Creed
Halo 3: ODST
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

And Fable 2 isn't that far behind.  Halo: Reach will also shoot to #7 or so shortly after release.

Remove that pesky Call of Duty series from these lists, and things look even better for the big budget exclusives.  Nintendo's titles also dominate the Wii's top sellers, but that has only to do with the quality of said titles.  Nintendo are the guys to beat.

So what do you think?  Can exclusivity help the sales of a game? 

Could the hype for an exclusive possibly even go so far as to make up for sales the game might've garnered if multiplat?  Would MGS4 have still topped MGS3 as a multiplatform title?  Will the multiplatform MGS: Rising top MGS4 overall?

Yes!

Yah, I've thought about this, too. I'm kind of undecided for sales.

In theory I'd be tempted to say no, for example if Gears was released on PS3 and did 800K as a late port that's till 800K more.

However, clearly being exclusive can make a title more desirable on a certain platform, potentially boosting sales and 'desirability'. It also tends to put the title on something of a pedestal - a game only available to the subset who own that console. I mean, I have no trouble with the idea being exclusive makes a game high profile and potential a lead title for the platform.

But... would GT5 sell nothing on 360? Or Halo 3 nothing on PS3? Surely they would pick up a decent amount of additional sales.

It's tough to call.

So I'm going to sit on the fence and say... maybe.

I've long thought this. A well-timed exclusive of enough quality will garner an extraordinary level of hype and far higher sales than if the title had been multiplatform. The internet goes wild over these things, even for largely middle-of-the-road games, and when accompanied by good reviews and solid word-of-mouth, a dev can hope for both high sales and a cut in development costs (including time) for not having to produce their title across multiple platforms. Further, such titles can gain extra support from the platform holder who may be keen to keep the high selling game on their system, ensuring it is not only a centre of hype regarding their product, but another reason to purchase their machine. So, lower development costs and subsidies from the platform holder (perhaps in the form of marketing or similar) coupled with higher than normal sales can perhaps guarantee an overall higher profit for the developer in question.

That said, titles of this type are in the minority. Most games will almost always sell more -- in most cases, much more -- over multiple platforms. The target sweet spot is very hard to hit on a single platform, and far too random a situation for most developers to gamble their future on.

Any of these titles would certainly sell somewhat well on another platform.  I more asking whether releasing the game on another platform would that take away from sales on its original platform?  Say if MGS4 was multiplat from day one, would it have only sold 2.5 million on ps3 and another 1.5 million or so on 360?

I go with yes.

Games that aren't exclusive on PS3 suffer awful lag, this has put me off on many occasions. Exclusives on the other hand have no lag at all.

Wat.

Aye, but fanboys can make a lot of noise, and the general public are easily swayed. 

And you'd be surprised at the number of fanboys roaming around in the wild.  I see some truly crazy people at my store.

And unless Sony/MS start supporting cross-platform play, the entire point of LBP would be lost if it were multiplat.  :P

Do you think Modern Warfare 2 would have sold more than 14-15 million copies at this point if it was a PS3 or 360 exclusive? I don't...

I think the number of console owners that won't buy a game simply because it's on another console is small (Modern Warfare 2 pretty much says that). So it all boils down to raw numbers, the more gamers attracted to a game and have a console that can play it the more that will likely buy it.

Well I've noticed this generation that there are far more multi platform owners compared to the past, so exclusivity is more important now than it probably used to be. Those multiplatform owners usually choose games based on the strengths of the console their buying it for.

An example would be Tekken 6 and Street Fighter 4, both sold better on PS3 because people prefer the controller for fighter's. Call of Duty and Battlefield sell better on the 360 because many believe the online community is superior. An exclusive doesnt leave the owner with any choices but the one platform, so it gets the sales of multiplatform owners.

I also believe some games suit a certain console audience more, I don't think Ratchet would sell on the 360 and Left 4 Dead wouldn't sell on the PS3.

Anyway, that's my crazy opinion....