I remember hearing on the FFXIII thread how Sony were not only cry babies, but that they were cry babies with a hoarding complex, and that they were selfish at trying to keep other people from playing a game. Then Sony fanboys respond how the 360 has a bunch of exclusives and that there's a double standard. And I'll see this ping pong exchange every time there's news on an exclusive of how the side that lost an exclusive is cursing, and the other side is saying "Good for all gamers" (e.g. Ghost Busters thread).

So are exclusives just bad? I remember in the MGS4 thread, one poster saying that without exclusives not only will it be boring, but there'll be NO COMPETITION. A gaming system, whether it can play Bluray, use Netflix, use Eye Toy, use super duper Hi-Tech Minority Report motion technology, is primarily supposed to play games. And exclusives distinguish one system from another. To wish that there's no exclusives is to wish that every console has the exact same lineup which just doesn't make sense.

So what is it? 1st party developers? Sony fanboys are gleefully saying that 1'st parties are the way to go as 3'rd parties can't sustain their huge development costs with exclusives (E.g. GTA IV). But then what about the many 2'nd part developers Sony has a relationship with? What about MGS4, which was developed by a third party developer, and the anger that erupted when SE, a third party developer, jumped ship?

Are exclusives DLC good or bad? It's optional and you still get to play the bulk of the game.

I can keep typing on and on, but I feel dumb arguing with myself, so please put your own thoughts. Are exclusives good or bad for gamers? And to what extent does it make it good or bad?

Good... potentially better quality games do to console specific coding.

Good.

Its what give the consoles a bit of Uniqueness.

Bad. In a nutshell, It destroys the future of potential great developers.

Multiplat FTW.

Good. A diverse library justifies the purchase of the console (over its competition). Good alternatives emerge as a result. If not for exclusivity, the Dreamcast never would have given us 2K Sports. All of those 2D fighters wouldn't have emerged if Street Fighter 2 weren't a SNES exclusive.

I'm sure other examples exist, too.

PS3 exclusives are good.

360 exclusives are bad. Fortunately, there aren't any.

Good for the first/second parties as they show the power of a console and all that malarky. 3rd party exclusives bad because devs lose out on money and a whole userbase(s) are unable to play the game.

BAD IF the Xbox360 had a Bluray drive and the technical Capabilities would be exactly same. I just dont wanna games that might be smaller because of DVD or have inferior graphics cause they dont use the full power of a console. Of course no game now exists which really used the full space clever. But I hope in the future there will be games which use the full space . Resulting in giant Worlds and a lot of content. And Exclusives can be made better on a certain console they can use the full potential.

Proper designed Exclusives on Ps3 or Xbox360 can be better then Mulitplatformtitels.

If GTA 4 would be an exclusive PS3 game that COULD have resulted in a bigger game. They have more money to invest in the game content because they dont need to port on Xbox or vice versa. Bigger City more things to do more houses to visit. Because you can always go back on each place disk swapping would be extremly annoying.

If they would develope it for Xbox360 only it would be better too they can spend more time and money for the actual gameplay.

Edit

Exclusive DLC for a Multiplatform Titel is bad in every way. Its completly senseless.

Bad. They give fanboys automatic bragging rights, and makes them feel better about their own console.

good