PlayStation

Exclusivity in general (not always) is a mistake. Sony has been learning this with the money they’re raking in doing PC ports finally, and Microsoft is learning it when they realize that going exclusive while also offering Game Pass cannibalizes direct sales beyond an acceptable amount (HFR, Indiana Jones). Nintendo only gets away with it because of their tight control of their IP’s and complete refusal to port to virtually anything. They barely even port their old back catalog to their current hardware. If you try to do a middle ground you often end up with the worst of both worlds.

They need to open up pretty substantially or lock it down completely, though the latter requires you to have a very strong exclusive catalog which Sony and Microsoft do not have right now compared to Nintendo.

Another good example is the Wii U. The catalog on that console is actually pretty thin compared to Wii and Switch, and it suffered for it. People try to explain it with vague statements about how folks didn’t understand what it was or whatever, and I’m sure that contributed, but it took them several years to get any games of note off the ground which meant there was no reason to buy one.