Pretty much this. They matter if you're Nintendo whose top 10 selling titles are 85% exclusives. However, it doesn't matter when you're like Sony or (in some cases) Microsoft who don't need as many exclusives [as Nintendo] to still push a good amount of consoles and not trail that far behind in the long run.

Back in the ol' days, exclusives literally made your decision to buy a console important because you would miss out on A LOT of good games that were exclusive versus now when you get pretty much most big releases  of the year on PS3 and Xbox 360. You're only left out in the dust if you have a Wii.

I'm a Nintendo fan as well as Sony fan. I enjoy them both and believe they can both coexist because they offer different things.

That being said Nintendo fans have a really bad habbit of thinking that only their exlcusives are important. Nintendo does have massive success with their IPs, especially so because Nintendo lacks 3rd party support. Exclusives are still important for the other two though, especially Sony.

If exclusives didn't matter I would probably have a 360 as most of my friends do.

Nintendo and Sony can clearly coexist. It's Microsoft and Sony that cannot coexist in the long run (If they are offering what they offer now which is pretty much the same experience outside of the here and there exclusives).

Additionally, I don't think Nintendo fans only think their exclusives are important. It's generally viewed that way because frankly those exclusives are the ONLY releases therefore, by default, they are important (but you already knew that as implied in your post). 

Exclusives matter but again, depends who they're for. On Nintendo, exlcusives are often magnified despite quality. Meanwhile, with Microsft and Sony, exclusives often release and fade away with minimal discussion about them (ironically also despite quality).

Yeah totally agree. It's kind of nice that Nintendo is so different. All this talk about becoming a "media hub" and shifting the focus away from the actual games to what kinda apps it can run is kind of annoying. Unfortunately I can see Sony and Microsoft getting into this weird app/media hub thing war haha.

Then there will still be Nintendo, doin it's own thing which is awesome.

At the beginning of a generation yes, around the end no.

Yeah, more than ever honestly.

Honestly the three things IMO that differentiate PS3 from 360 are Blu-ray, XBL/PSN and their respective exclusives. Besides that they're basically the exact same. Exclusives are hugely important I think!

YES exclusives matter.