I Want Console Exclusives Back

The death of console exclusives is the death of video game consoles

Nintendo versus Sega. Mario versus Sonic.

PlayStation versus Xbox. Gran Turismo versus Forza.

PlayStation versus Sega. Tekken versus Virtua Fighter.

Nintendo versus PlayStation. Mario versus Crash Bandicoot.

Rivalries have always defined the games industry.

I remember 15 to 20 years ago, the idea of playing whatever game you wanted on whatever console you own was a pipe dream for many; in Halo 3 lobbies and while playing the criminally underselling Viva Piñata me and my friends would look on in jealousy at games like Uncharted 2 for the PS3 and recall playing LittleBigPlanet at a friend’s house and wishing we could have both consoles (another pipe dream before adulthood) or that these experiences could be had on the Xbox 360. I’m willing to bet players on the other side of the fence thought the same too.

Times changed, we got our wish but as the old saying goes: be careful what you wish for.

Fast-forward to 2025 and the only modern console I own is the Nintendo Switch as well as a beefy PC for those games that won’t run on Nintendo’s humble hybrid.

In retrospect, the beginning of the end arrived with Xbox’s Game Pass in 2017 and I don’t think two words have ever dismantled a brand faster.

Conceived as a game-rental service originally and shaped by Microsoft’s desire to push more cloud-based services and encouraged by the rise of Netflix, the Game Pass began as a limited selection of Xbox exclusives but quickly grew into an inter-publisher and then interindustry service that was now available on anything from your Fire stick to your phone. Between the Game Pass Ultimate subscription and its PC app, ports of Xbox games to other platforms and Xbox’s first party games taking a seismic plunge in quality since 2015, Phil Spencer had annihilated any reason for anybody to buy these consoles.

Sony fans grinned and cheered as the green giant (no, not the bloke on the sweetcorn cans) seemed to stumble into irrelevance with declining sales and abysmal first-party reviews but the apocalypse was soon coming for the blues too.

Days Gone, God of War, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, one by one and under outside pressure, Sony began to haemorrhage exclusives until now, like Xbox, unless you want to own more niche titles like Gran Turismo (racing games have always been a niche genre) or Sony’s tribute to the history of PlayStation: Astro Boy, there isn’t much reason to own a PS5 now either.

Does anyone else feel a profound sense of loss from this?

When I was growing up, a video game console was something unique, something different, something special: an experience that the competitor couldn’t provide; games didn’t even look the same across platforms.

The PS2 had more aliased visuals than the Gamecube for example but could look truly next generation if the right developer had it, the original Xbox was the only one of the trio that used progressive scan without settings tweaking or weird button combinations and the Gamecube was often sharper than the PS2 at the loss of size, scope and audio quality due to its tiny discs. There are exceptions but these differences often came up.

All of this is gone.

In the endless, futile quest for PC parity and in torpedoing their own library of exclusives, Sony and Microsoft have created a pair of upper-midrange gaming PC’s with zero personality or uniqueness.

Do you own a PlayStation 5 or an Xbox Series ABCDEFGHIJKLMN/OPQRSTUVWXYZ? I’d love to hear your thoughts on why you do or don’t feel your purchase was worthwhile.