Something that’s been hitting the headlines a bit over the past couple of days relates to a new survey that’s been conducted by the analysis firm Circana, and how it suggests exclusives are the number one reason to own a console.
This gained traction due to being shared by The Game Business — the outlet pointed out that 41% of US gamers in the survey mentioned playing games on a console because they contain exclusive titles.
However, Circana’s Senior Director followed up by insisting that “this isn’t the whole story”, pointing out in follow-up posts that the results in the survey are very close — and that in his opinion, “the real answer is that everything matters”.
“To add context here, this is from Circana’s Q1 Future of Video Games consumer survey. But obviously, this isn’t the whole story.”
Let’s have a look at the survey results, and then we’ll share some of the director’s follow-up posts:
N=2.5k active US video game players aged 13+. Weighted based on representive distribution of platform use and investment.
Feel free to ignore if it bothers you that it does not align with your predetermined desired result.
— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2026-05-01T00:16:24.264Z
It’s interesting how there is such a diversity of reasons; nothing comes close to a definite majority and these are the “top 5” of an unstated number of options.
Yep. It’s why the whole how much do exclusives matter debate has been going on for years and years and why it’ll keep going.
The real answer is that everything matters, but that’s not as much fun I guess idk.
— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2026-05-01T03:27:15.695Z
This is probably a silly follow-up
But are we talking games exclusives to specific platforms or games exclusives to just consoles versus like mobile
— April’s Favorite Fool (@breakabone.bsky.social) 2026-04-30T20:27:33.169Z
Well, that is up to the respondent. We do not define the term in the survey.
— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2026-04-30T21:04:54.868Z
So, the takeaway here isn’t that exclusives are the be-all and end-all when it comes to buying consoles, but they do factor into many people’s purchasing decisions — and really, that’s no surprise… it’s always been that way!
Asha Sharma and her team will undoubtedly be taking that into account when it comes to Project Helix and the next generation of Xbox, and we already know they’re officially reevaluating what to do about exclusivity in the future.
What will come of that reevaluation though? We might not find out for months, and maybe not even until 2027…
What do you make of these survey results? Let us know down in the comments section below.
Fraser is the News Editor at Pure Xbox, where he spends his time reporting on the biggest stories in the world of Xbox and beyond.