Console exclusivity is pro-consumer

MayCaesar

In my view, on the consumer market, out of two possibilities - having product X or not having product X - the former is always preferable. There are two categories of consumers:
1) Consumers that are interested in buying X - they can go ahead and buy X, whiles in the latter case they would not be able to.
2) Consumers that are not interested in buying X - they can just avoid buying X. Nothing changes for them, compared to the latter case.

I cannot see any reason for the existence of console exclusives to have any negative effects on gaming and the end users. I suppose you could argue that console exclusives have a bad influence on other types of games - however, game developer companies only reflect that influence in their games when they know that the consumers want to see them. So, again, the consumers direct what games are produced. if there is a product that sells, then there is a demand for that product, and the supply only makes sense to appear.

Ampersand

It's certainly isn't consumer friendly.

In Capitalism the activity of accumulating money is viewed as having a rough correlation with social benefit. If people are buying things they must want it which in turn encourages produces to make what people want. 

Of course when you start looking at the nitty gritty like here, that starts to fall apart. People want console exclusives on other consoles and the makers would get more money if it was console exclusive. There would be more happiness - more social benefit - if it was widely available but thatthat doe happen because of the exclusivity agreement. Sony, Microsoft, etc pay money to reduce the social benefit and utility of the game by limiting it to one console because it helps them as a business.

The thing is businesses by themselves don't actually matter. They're a means to an end (creating and managing the sale of commodities for the benefit of humankind) not the end itself. When they perform acts which reduce the social benefit that's therefore obviously a bad thing.