They already have.... IN 3D!!!

It's been brought up before, but this was also the case early on in the 360's life cycle. It didn't get any exclusive third party games worth a damn until... what, Dead Rising? I'm gonna say Dead Rising.

They don't call it the touch generation for nothing.

This isn't the 6th generation. 3rd party exclusives will mainly depend depend on Nintendo moneyhatting.

sounds good for anyone picking up a wii u

That sounds correct, and even then it's exclusivity (or the fact that it was made at all) was largely due to Inafune's influence, or at least that's how i seem to remember it

Play4Fun makes the better point, however. How many third party exclusives are there going to be in Gen 8 period that are not moneyhatted? It's easier to make peripheral use of the U-Pad, to port it and still have something slightly unique on there (if only moving the more obstructive parts of the HUD down off the screen), and third parties aren't going to want to exploit the Wii U's greater power significantly in such a way that would make a game impossible to down-port, simply due to the financial risk at this point

I think you'd be right with Dead Rising as the first major exclusive. I think it came before Saints Row and Gears in '06.

The first major, big game on the 360 though that couldn't be found on another console was Call of Duty 2. CoD2 was so far beyond anything else on consoles that it wasn't even funny. While the PS2 got Big Red One, CoD2 blew it away. Really showed what was possible on "next gen" HW. Another big game that came before Dead Rising but wasn't exclusive and also not on another console was Oblivion. That also really showed what the HW was capable of against PS2/GC/Xbox.
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My point with the Wii U support, is how the HW seems to be so similar to PS360. We know it's more powerful, but is it more powerful in the same sense 360/PS3 was to Xbox/PS2? Powerful enough to warrant creating new game engines to run on the console like we saw with 360 (Engines that could be used on PS3)? 360 games like Oblivion, Call of Duty 2, Dead Rising, Saints Row were just too complex to port to the other consoles at the time, for a prime example of this just look to Dead Rising Wii. Now imagine that on the PS2.

I simply see developers using it as a port box, at least for the first couple of Years. Everything we've seen so far points in that direction from them using 360 footage at E3 to developers saying it's comparable like this.

Just a prediction, not saying it will happen, just guessing.

Edit: In response to the moneyhatting/exclusives of the next generation, I think it's gonna be kinda like this generation. Mainly timed stuff and things like DLC/Live/PSN/NN games. Add in the odd publishing deals like we've seen with Gears/Heavy Rain and you'll get your "exclusives".

While I think the Wii U will probably get a lot of multi-platform games from the XBox 360 and PS3 early on, I also expect that the Wii U will become the base system for games developed for the "XBox 720" and PS4 next generation ...

Outside of a handful of big budget third party exclusive game, the only exclusive games that will be going to any system next generation are first/second party games and low budget games that focus on the unique features of a system. Anyone thinking that publishers will allow game budgets to increase from their current level while limiting their sales by ignoring platforms with significant userbases is delusional.

*Dissapointed with pezus*

As long as they stay away from Metroid I'll be fine with them.