These days true exclusives are only getting rarer and rarer.

We live in a world where Xbox first party games make their way to Switch, Playstation first party games like Horizon and Days Gone are going to PC, and third parties basically never lock their games to one platform because there's just too much money to be made by spreading it around.

Switch may have only a small number of "real exclusives" but that's a sign of the times more than anything; a few gens ago stuff like Octopath would've stayed Switch only, but on the other hand we wouldn't have gotten Ori or Cuphead.

Splatoon 2
Mario Odyssey
Xenoblade 2
Mario Plus Rabbids
ARMs
Xenoblade Torna (stand alone game release)
Fire Emblem Warriors
Age of Calamity
Cadence of Hyrule
Fire Emblem Three Houses
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3
Luigi's Mansion 3
Mario Maker 2
Paper Mario OK
Kirby Star Allies
Yoshi's Crafted World
Link's Awakening Remake
Smash Ultimate
Astral Chain
Animal Crossing New Horizons

I dunno man, I just listed over 20 non cross gen true exclusives off the top of my head (and there are more than I listed).  Saying the Switch doesn't seem to have a lot of them doesn't seem to make sense.  I think it is safe to assume that any Nintendo IP, be it 1st or 2nd party, will not be going to any other platforms in the near future.  Now 3rd party exclusives sure, outside of whatever contract Nintendo has with the publisher, I can see most of them at least going to PC.

But to accumulate a list like this in just 4 years, which puts PS4 and XB1 to shame in their first 4 years without even counting "console exclusives" or WiiU ports...I would call that anything but a small number of true exclusives.

I see a lot of people try to spin that the Switch mainly just has WiiU ports pushing the console, but that clearly isn't the case and when you break it down it looks like more of a reach than anything else.

So while exclusives are indeed less common in the industry these days, I feel like Nintendo will be the outlier (as they are in so many things).  As long as Nintendo is making consoles, 1st and 2nd party Switch games are pretty much a lock to be true exclusives.

That's still a relatively small list of exclusives compared to say, the Wii, and even then Fire Emblem Warriors and Link's Awakening aren't exclusives and Torna is an expansion.

That said, Switch is a long way from done so over its remaining life it could bulk up and accumulate an exclusives list more in line with what I'd expect from a successful Nintendo system.

Splatoon 2
Mario Odyssey
Xenoblade 2
Mario Plus Rabbids
ARMs
Xenoblade Torna (stand alone game release)
Fire Emblem Warriors
Age of Calamity
Cadence of Hyrule
Fire Emblem Three Houses
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3
Luigi's Mansion 3
Mario Maker 2
Paper Mario OK
Kirby Star Allies
Yoshi's Crafted World
Link's Awakening Remake
Smash Ultimate
Astral Chain
Animal Crossing New Horizons

I dunno man, I just listed over 20 non cross gen true exclusives off the top of my head (and there are more than I listed).  Saying the Switch doesn't seem to have a lot of them doesn't seem to make sense.  I think it is safe to assume that any Nintendo IP, be it 1st or 2nd party, will not be going to any other platforms in the near future.  Now 3rd party exclusives sure, outside of whatever contract Nintendo has with the publisher, I can see most of them at least going to PC.

But to accumulate a list like this in just 4 years, which puts PS4 and XB1 to shame in their first 4 years without even counting "console exclusives" or WiiU ports...I would call that anything but a small number of true exclusives.

I see a lot of people try to spin that the Switch mainly just has WiiU ports pushing the console, but that clearly isn't the case and when you break it down it looks like more of a reach than anything else.

So while exclusives are indeed less common in the industry these days, I feel like Nintendo will be the outlier (as they are in so many things).  As long as Nintendo is making consoles, 1st and 2nd party Switch games are pretty much a lock to be true exclusives.

That's still a relatively small list of exclusives compared to say, the Wii, and even then Fire Emblem Warriors and Link's Awakening aren't exclusives and Torna is an expansion.

That said, Switch is a long way from done so over its remaining life it could bulk up and accumulate an exclusives list more in line with what I'd expect from a successful Nintendo system.

Torna was deaigned as an expansion, but became something more and got its own full release as a game.  I have the physical game card myself, and you do not need Xenoblade 2 to play it.  It is about 30-40 hours long, and by definition a stand alone game.

Full on remakes like Link's Awakening are considered new games, so it makes the list.

You are correct about Fire Emblem Warriors, as I forgot about the 3DS version.  So for the sake of consistency, just replace it with Pokemon Sword or Shield.

The Wii is not a very good example, as it had a radically different control scheme that its games were built off of.  3rd parties pretty much HAD to keep Wii games exclusive without making changes to work with a regular controller (till the PS move was released anyway), so it wasn't really worth the time to port.  So what you really need to look at is 1st and 2nd party comparisons.

What it is comparable to however, is the PS360 from the same generation.  Aside from 1st and 2nd party, most 3rd party games were multiplat.  Hell even many 360 3rd party exclusives still found their way to the PS3 by the end of the generation.

So the current exclusive landscape really isn't any different from say 10 years ago, except MS games and some Sony games are now going to PC.  Nintendo has been the outlier in all of this, and have not really changed how they handle exclusive content.  And given how Nintendo does things, I don't see that changing while they are still in the hardware business.

Torna was designed as an expansion and it remained one; it is not its own game, and remakes are not new games either.

I stand by most of Switch's best first party content being recycled Wii U ports, and its actual exclusive lineup being subpar by Nintendo standards.

It's a Nintendo system so that's what I'll compare it against, and when set next to their other stronger efforts it falls short thus far.

Again though, it's a long way from done hopefully so by the end of its life it may have surpassed them all, but this is why I give it an 8/10 and not a 10/10 at this date.

Link's Awakening is a full on remake, so it is indeed an exclusive.