Is money still made from console exclusives? I feel like I see less of them these days. The biggest games are cross platform monsters, and the smallest are indie games.

Crazy to think that the Horizon Zero Dawns of the world would be propping up all of console gaming??

But maybe that’s why Xbox is looking to get out. And trying new monetization strategies (gamepass is on Roku or something)

In principle the consoles themselves and the exclusives are both loss leaders. Or, sold at cost, anyway. The actual money is made from the 30% cut on any third party game sales, and the online subscriptions required to play online.

Consoles are expensive. Once a consumer has bought one, they're likely to stick with it for the generation. This is why we have flame wars about them. Only a small minority has several high-end gaming devices.

Exclusives sold consoles which determined future revenues. MS messed up horrendously with both a worse console and meh exclusives.

An exclusive will sell fewer copies, so the console manufacturer will strike a beneficial deal to make up for it.