Does it foster better competition? Yes. Which means it also fosters better games. And better games are better for consumers. So the answer is obviously yes: exclusives are better for consumers.

The industry massively shifting away from exclusivity in the past 10 years answers the first question with a very clear no. There's just so much more money to be made having games be on as many platforms as reasonably possible. At this point only Nintendo can get away with full exclusivity and even then I think it's only a matter of time till a shift happens there as well even if it's still over a decade away.

For the consumer it's also a no since the average person naturally wants to access as much media as possible on whatever device they use. For example it's great for Final Fantasy fans that they won't have to buy Playstation consoles any more to play new FF games right away. There's people out there that got a PS5 for FF16 and Rebirth and haven't touched it since the latter.

In the past unique hardware could lead to unique experiences so exclusives did use to have way more of a point. The DS had games that did really creative things with the dual screen aspect so that's the one major area where consumers and the art form of video games could benefit from exclusivity though nowadays that factor is a lot less prevalent. 

Devs saving more money doesnt mean more money goes back into the games optimisation. You are just feeding the shareholders and saving money for the corporates.

If what you are saying is true, why do exclusives have launch issues and a plethora of bugs?

So if company X goes and buys up all the 3rd party exclusives and you had to buy a console you dont own to play them, that's better for you?

Deleted, double post.

It's not about money, it's about resources, manhours primarily. Focusing all your resources on one version means that version gets more time and attention.

"But some exclusives have bugs" is once again the "but if there are black haired women in the world why is that woman over there red headed?" If the same game was multiplat, they'd likely be even more bugs cos devs would have less time to squash them with all the extra work.

Laptops count as PC gaming. The supposed barrier is to install a software i.e. steam, it's something every person with any basic familiarity with computers. If a person can't figure out something as simply as download Steam I doubt they will find gaming on consoles any easier, they likely will just play on Smartphones (or not play games at all)

I must add, you may have chosen two of the worst possible examples for making your point: BG3 is infamous for suffering from some major bugs and glitches later on in the game. Also, SM2 is not a game with “many game breaking bugs”—well, at least not anymore than your average game—but is among the most critically acclaimed releases of the generation.

That said, I would agree with Curl’s point here that in-house exclusivity does motivate developers responsible for hard to output premium experience, since otherwise system sales may not move. Simply look at the GotY nominees from since 2013: Nintendo and Sony dominate nominations and overall awards. There aren’t many devs in the industry who can compare to Sony and Nintendo in terms of their in-house software output. (Additionally, recall how hard Sega’s quality assurance plummeted following their departure from the hardware business.)

The resources dont change, they just dont spend more, to have it on other platforms.

It all comes down to the developers.

We see just as many polished 3rd party titles as 1st party titles. The games themselves dont magically get better because of a single focus platform narrative. If that was true then no 1st party game would have issues. But plenty do. 

Square released Forspoken, a game with horrible optimisation on 1 platform, why? It had all the resources and focus of one platform.

Once again, Forepoken would likely have been worse on multiple platforms, cos they would have had less time to optimize the PS5 version. Any exclusive with issues would have likely have only more issues if it was multiplat.

If your resources are 100, you can invest all 100% in one version, or divide it say 5 ways across 5 platforms so each gets 20%.

And actually no, Nintendo and Sony first party exclusives for instance are far better than most multiplatform titles.