Video games are a massive entertainment empire with a complex history. Hardware and software rise and fall, trends change, genres shift.

But I find it interesting that from the end of the seventh generation and the start of the eighth generation, software exclusivity is dying.

No where is this more clear than with Xbox. The Xbox One only has about 11 truly exclusive pieces of software. One of those is Rare Replay, a compilation of older games. Several of the others are Kinect games (which Microsoft killed years ago). And retroactively, some games later get ported to a future piece of hardware. Maybe Halo 5 will be one of those games.

And the Xbox Series S/X is the big shocker. It's a major video game platform and doesn't have a single piece of exclusive software available or announced. Every game on Series S/X you can either play on Windows or Xbox One.

Even the PlayStation 5 only has a tiny handful of true exclusives, with very few announced. 

And of the Nintendo Switch's thousands of titles, less than 80 are exclusive to the platform.

I have a mixed opinion on this whole situation. On the one hand, it seems very pro-consumer. A lot of people don't want to have to buy 2-3 platforms to play games. On the other hand, I feel like we are missing out on titles that take advantage of certain hardware features and controller inputs. But even then, the architectures of consoles is becoming more like PCs.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the PlayStation 6 or 7 is like Xbox where you can play any of the games on at least PlayStation and Windows. It seems like that's where the industry is heading.

There really isn't much in the way of unique hardware right now, outside of VR. So, I don't feel like we're missing out on much by having fewer exclusives. I've always been someone that buys every major system. But, it would be great to not have to do that anymore. I look forward to that time coming soon, and it seems that it is.

And there was much rejoicing!

More games available to more consumers.
More games available to buy and drive profits, which means more raises and jobs for development studios.

I look forward to the complete and total death of single device exclusives! Long live the new era!

The only thing that changed was the 3rd parties decided that there is a lot more money to be made to put your games on everything than on one platform.

The only exclusives that will be made are going to be from 1st party companies. This was always going to happen. If you want consoles to feel more unique then it will happen via 1st party games, not through 3rd parties. Those days are long gone.

Doesnt change much from the last 2 gens tbh, 1st party software is the defining factor at the end of the day.

I'm not really feeling it

For PC, Somy and Miceosoft maybe Yes

For Nintendo not really

We have exclusive demos instead.

^Yay.

This is a good thing. Also it's been like this ever since the 7th generation where we started seeing a lot less exclusives. The 8th generation saw even less, and now 9th gen will see even less.

The way I see it, partly a good thing, partly not.

On the one hand, it's cool being able to play previously exclusive games/IPs like Ori on Switch.

On the other, games tailored specifically for a certain hardware tend to take better advantage of that hardware than ports/multiplats. Switch so far has less such games than, say, the Wii, which is a shame.