Strange how the fact you have Hobbes as an Avatar makes me want to agree with you instinctively... I obviously read way to much C&H when younger.

Funnily enough I am more of a PC gamer recently getting more into consoles, so perhaps that why exclusives seem strange to me - in that people get all excited about what is often simply a ploy to get them to buy a particular brand, nothing more.

Still, I think from the replies there is a general feeling that exclusives are good if they deliver (i.e. really use the chosen platform well and are a great game) while more general exclusives are recognised for what they are.

Still, with a PC, PS3, PSP and DS and with a Wii to come later I guess in truth the only exclusives I might have to miss are those on 360 which don't come to PC... and I strongly suspect that for the most part that likely means I wouldn't be interested in them anyway.

It's a sad thing for gamers. Take my recent purchase Lost Odyessey. I'm on Disc 3 31:29 hours in and can honestly say it's the best RPG I've ever played by some way. Alot of RPG's fans will miss this. But that's life.

ALL GAMES SHOULD BE EXCLUSIVE. I rarly buy any multiplat games just due to the shear crap they turn out to be. Their are of course exeptions, but the occurance of a good MP is so low that I see them as a waste of time for the industry. Of course you have the uneducated gamer that will pick them up, but I think it leaves a bad image on video games as a whole when these crap titles rake in tons of cash, and get highly recognized.

Exclusives allow Consoles to enable businesses to achieve productive differentiation and offer unqiue selling points , without this ther'd be no competition which would be terrible for the consumer.

Reasonable - in general what you fail to consider is that exclusivity is the reason that some games exist in the form that they do. Others have already pointed out that you tend to end up with lowest common denominator games when third parties go multiplatform.

However, exclusivity is even more of an advantage for first party titles. Your original post asks whether or not Nintendo should have to make SSBB a multiplatform title. The real question, though, is whether or not Nintendo would have made SSBB in the same way were it going to be a multiplatform title. As it is, it's a 'system seller'. It's one of the biggest games of the generation and was one of the most anticipated games on the Wii. Would the profit maximizing development strategy have been the same if the game's quality didn't also boost the Wii's mindshare? Wouldn't it have been in Nintendo's interest to not try quite as hard, still assured of selling millions of copies across all systems?

The exclusivity of first party games is the only reason why first parties have an incentive to produce better games than the average developer.

As well, the way things are currently seems just fine.  Isn't there near-universal agreement that you can play almost all of the best games of any previous generation with a single console?  The market tends to very quickly marginalize all but one of the consoles in a given generation, so savvy consumers need only buy one.

Exclusives are a sign of healthy competition. Healthy competition breeds better products, and this is key innovative products. The reality is no gamer is wasting away, because of exclusives. The mere existence of exclusives benefits the consumer. They help smaller developers into the market. They cause the manufacturers to develop high end games. They tax large developers preventing complete market dominance. Without the competition. Exclusives of all colors bring better games to market period.

Basically the premise is without exclusivity you could play all of the games you really want that might be on different platforms. The reality is without exclusivity these games probably wouldn't make it to market, and originality would be sorely missed. Instead you would have a few large third party developers who could throw their weight around in a market with no competition.

Exclusives are part of what makes the market competitive. There are also by the way no altruistic exclusives. When money isn't changing hands its strategic alliances at play. Which is all about doing the thing that will make you more money. No third party developers president is going home to sleep with the manufacturers top honchos. They are doing what they are doing, because it makes financial sense to them.

Exclusives are often an indicator of a certain level of quality, especially in terms of glitches. There's a lower level of quality I typically expect from multiplatform titles due to them being crippled by the weakest capabilities of all the consoles they support. Of course, (COD4 being a good example) it's possible to get a good multiplatform title but it seems like that could be thought of as more like developing an exclusive game on two platforms rather than a typical "multiplatform" title. It's obvious that with COD4 much more care than usual was taken in making sure it worked well on both the PS3 and 360. Then again, no matter how well GTA4 runs, we already know the size of the game is being limited by the DVD on the 360 even when it's being played on the PS3.

Yes competition is good however that is not always the case for consumers. In most aspects competition brings the prices down and in that way empowers consumers, but in certain circumstances a standard is what consumers want. The best example is the recent HD format wars between HD-DVD and Blu-ray, each having their exclusives movies. So why was this competition not acceptable for most consumers? I think that video games should be the same, one console for all. I'm going to disclose that I favor Nintendo, and this is due to what I believe is that they are the most innovative of all three. Of course Sony and MS have done a good job in advancing the graphical technologies and that is great but in the video game area innovation is a better approach as it is a bit of an art form in certain aspects. My dream team machine would be a Nintendo-Sony console. Great graphics powerhouse + game innovation and interface. My two cents.

Exclusives in my opinion are not bad for the consumer. It actually helped me out this generation. I couldn't decide whether I should have only a PS3 or Xbox 360. I eventually went through a phase just owning one but couldn't be without the other and bought both consoles. I also did the same thing with the Nintendo DS and PSP.

I have all consoles this generation except the Nintendo Wii. It helps me out, it prevents console wars so that I don't segregate between one or the other. And I have a chance to play all those games that are exclusive to that console. I feel as though it was worth buying all consoles :D

On top of that if there weren't exclusives then consumers would just pick one console this generation and it would of been the Nintendo Wii of course :D

But with each console maker releasing content aboard, it actually helps the market continue and grow :)