A recent survey from market research firm Circana shows that, as before, the number one reason people use consoles is to play exclusive games not available on other platforms. But the data shows that other factors are nearly as important and, interestingly, exclusive games are becoming less of a reason to buy a PS5 or boot up a Switch 2.
In a new installment of The Game Business, published on April 30, reporter Christopher Dring connected dots between new data and previous reporting to make the case that the reason PlayStation and Xbox are seemingly returning to exclusive games, after a period of porting stuff to PC and rival platforms, is because that’s still the main driver for people buying and playing consoles.
According to a new Q1 2026 survey from Circana, when asked: “Why do you play games on a console?” 41 percent of surveyed gamers responded: “There are games I want to play that are exclusive to a console.” This is down eight percent from this time last year. Still, Dring suggested that this fact, combined with sales data that shows exclusives help drive console sales and plenty of previously exclusive titles ported to other platforms haven’t sold incredibly well, help explain why Xbox and PlayStation are reportedly stepping back from bringing titles like Halo, Gears, Spider-Man, and God of War to Steam and rival consoles.
It should be noted, though, that on PlayStation, some of the top-selling games are actually third-party, which seems to indicate that a lot of PS5 owners aren’t primarily here for exclusives. Instead, it seems likely they are playing games on PS5 because that’s where their friends and family are gaming, which actually lines up perfectly with “Friends and family also play on console,” the second most popular response to Circana’s console question.
Exclusives aren’t the ‘whole story,’ says Circana director
In response to Dring’s Game Business podcast and story, Mat Piscatella, senior director and video game industry advisor at Circana, posted the full survey results in response to the question on Bluesky and added that “this isn’t the whole story.”
When someone in the replies to Piscatella’s post on social media said that it was interesting how the top answers from that Q1 survey weren’t far apart in popularity, the senior director at Circana agreed and added, “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.”
Regardless of whether exclusives are becoming less of a reason for people to buy and play consoles, it’s clear that Xbox and PlayStation are rethinking the strategy of porting games, especially single-player games, to rival consoles.
“I want to make the right decision, not the fastest decision,” said newly appointed Xbox boss Asha Sharma when asked by Game File about reevaluating Xbox exclusives.
When you consider that recent sales estimates suggest that Starfield sold around just 200k copies on PS5 and other titles, like The Outer Worlds 2, sold even fewer copies on PlayStation, it does start to seem that, at the very least, not every Xbox game needs to arrive on PS5. Sure, Forza Horizon 5 was a real barn burner, so I expect future Forza titles to land on PS5 after a small delay. But how much money is Xbox really losing by not porting everything to PS5 and keeping stuff on PC and Xbox only? And regarding PlayStation, as explained by Kotaku’s own Ethan Gach already, it also makes some sense that Sony would be reevaluating its previous plan to port more PS5 games to PC after Steam ports of Spider-Man 2 and God of War Ragnarok didn’t set the world on fire. Sony likely makes more money just getting people to buy a PS5 instead of selling a few extra copies on Steam.
This newly released survey data seems to indicate that exclusives might not be going away after all, as it still seems like the number one reason people generally play games on console. That might be a problem for Xbox as its console sales continue to tank, but that also likely explains why Project Helix, its next-gen Xbox, is basically going to be a PC. That’s a market that’s growing fast, and the initiative could be a way to keep the Xbox brand around in living rooms without having to rely entirely on PS5/PS6 ports.
