I am looking at this generation.  What had been true in the past had been that there would be a few console exclusive killer apps that made all the difference.  However, I look into this generation, and titles like Modern Warfare, Fallout 3, and others are multiple-console titles.  Oh, there is Halo being Halo (Halo Wars did ok, but wasn't all that), but we don't know about Gran Turismo at this point, and if it is still all that (release will reveal how much of an impact it is).

But, this generation seems mostly about top third-party titles in the high def arena.  So, in light of this, how important are exclusives? 

Depends.

When a consumer is looking to purchase a video game console, they look at a variety of factors: Price, games/exclusives, and other features.

If you have two consoles which offer nearly the same feature set at the exact same price, then you will make your selection based on which has the better game line-up and that is determined by exclusives.

However, this generation doesn't have that. This generation has two low-priced competitors versus a high-priced competitor. The Wii easily differentiates itself with its games, its IR/motion controls, and it's price-point which, at one point, was the lowest of the three. The 360 differentiates itself with the lowest entry price-point and quite a few features the Wii isn't capable of. The PS3 can't differentiate itself based on price so it has to rely on exclusives and other features.

So, to answer the question, exclusives are very important to the Wii and PS3 but less important to the 360.

This generation's exclusives are HD exclusives, PC exclusives, or Wii exclusives.

The two HD consoles together have a big enough marketshare to make their multiplatform games the most important ones, but not big enough to support them as exclusives.


Also, they are so similar, that there is simply no excuse for a game to be exclusive. It's justified that they don't port HD games to the Wii, and motion controlled games to the HD consoles, but the only reason for a game being ps3, or x360 exclusive is first party interest, and gamers don't like when their games are sabotaged by business interests.

For PS360, there aren't any actual console shifters other than Halo, Gears of War, Final Fantasy (JP), Metal Gear Solid and Gran Turismo. sure you get a small boost from some, but those are the real big exclusives, but I am sure titles like Uncharted and Ratchet help the cause

Wii, extremely important of course, no need to even say it.

On HD consoles, not very important.

The biggest games in this gen are multipalforms such as:

GTA4
Call of Duty
Final Fantasy 13
Oblivion
Assassin's Creed
Fallout 3
Resident Evil 5
Dante's Inferno
Guitar Hero
Bioshock
Star Wars Force Unleashed

I disagree with some of what you said. Mainly the very last bit. I agree that exclusives are not as important now as previous generations but are still relatively important.

Even without exclusives the wii would sell well because it offers something the others can't, the unique controller. It sells far better than the other two consoles. If Exclusives like Wii Fit and Mario is the reason for these higher sales then in a way it proves that exclusives do matter a whole lot but that's debatable.

Of the HD consoles the x360 really can't offer anything the PS3 can't.

The PS3 can brag blu-ray and built in wireless etc that the xbox360 can't. It is known that some buy the PS3 just for blu-ray (I don't know of anyone personally that did).

It then comes down to price and as the cheapest console the x360 should have an advantage but still can't even get close to the wii in sales.

Without having anything really unique to offer that the others can't I think the x360 needs exclusives more than the wii and the PS3. Why do you think it is so cheap?

That's just my opinion.

The only exclusive that matters is Halo. It pretty much IS the reason why the original Xbox survived. Even now it's well on its way to 10 million units sold. With 32 million Xbox 360 sales, that's almost a 30 percent attach rate. Pretty nutty.

A very biased opinion it is, but you are entitled to it.

I'll go over a few of your points though.

• Exclusives matter (ala Wii):  Exclusives matter based on the situation.
• The 360 doesn't offer anything the PS3 can't:  Make a thread in the Microsoft forum and say that.  I dare you.
• 360 vs Wii "Price doesn't matter" argument:  Price matters versus the PS3 because their offerings are so similar.  Price matters less against the Wii because the offerings are so much different.  It's all about what dimensions the customer is comparing.
• "The 360 needs exclusives because it's cheap" :  Almost right... but still wrong. The 360 doesn't need exclusives as much as the PS3 because it's cheap. It easily wins on the cost dimension so it doesn't need to fight as hard on the other dimensions as the PS3 does.

I miss when there were more exclusive games for consoles than there were multiplat, like in the 16 or 32-bit era (the playstation and N64 libraries were very different). It made console libraries much more interresting compared to other console libraries and it made having a specific console more fun.

I second this.