Data from Circana shows that the biggest factor for gamers when choosing a console is access to games you can’t play anywhere else.
As a gamer, I was reading an article about why people choose PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo, and it’s really interesting! Apparently, about 41% of us in the US pick our console based on games you can only play on that system – exclusives, basically. It’s actually down a little from last year when it was closer to 50%, but it still seems like exclusives are the biggest reason most of us choose what we play on!
Surprisingly, 38% of people chose a particular gaming system because their friends and family already had it, even though many games now allow players on different systems to play together.
It’s not a surprising point, but it differs from what Xbox leaders have been saying for the last couple of years. While the company’s position seems to be changing with new CEO Asha Sharma, previous leaders used to call this approach outdated.
As a PlayStation fan, I’ve noticed something interesting. For a while there, Sony was bringing its best PS5 games to PC, which was cool for those of us who also game on computers. But it looks like those PC ports didn’t sell as well as they hoped, and now Sony seems to be changing course and focusing on keeping those big exclusives for PlayStation consoles again.
According to The Game Business, while Sony’s own games like Ghost of Yotei and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 do increase PS5 sales, they actually see the largest sales boosts from games made by other companies, such as EA Sports FC and NBA 2K.
We believe these efforts are adding up. Sony excels at promoting major third-party games – especially sports titles – each year, and this is part of a larger plan. For instance, Marvel’s Wolverine and GTA 6 will both be exclusive to the PS5 this year.
Popular Nintendo series like Pokémon and The Legend of Zelda are major drivers of Switch sales, but the evidence clearly shows that exclusive games definitely play a role in what gaming console people choose to buy.
How important are exclusives to you when you pick up a new console?
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2026-05-02 02:06