People love to talk about the console wars and ask who if anyone will dominate or win the whole thing. Perhaps the real question is what will be the deciding factor in that war? Will it be the hardware? The support? Or will it be something like the exclusive games you'll only be able to find on that console and that console only? Exclusive games used to be a huge deciding factor, but is that really the case anymore?

From the article:

They are the professional analysts whose job it is to research, keep track of, advise their clients, and opine to the media about the gaming business. Analyze This cuts right to the chase: Rather than reporting on a subject, and throwing in quotes by analysts to support or refute a point, Gamasutra offers up a timely question pertaining to the business side of the video game industry and simply lets the analysts offer their thoughts directly to you. Each person's opinion is his own and will (probably) not necessarily agree with their fellow colleagues'.

In the last game console generation, emphasis was placed heavily on establishing platform exclusivity for a number of high-profile third party titles (e.g., Grand Theft Auto). But how important will exclusive titles be for this generation fought among the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii? We asked Ed Barton of Screen Digest, Ben Bajarin of Creative Strategies and Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities:

How important are exclusive titles for this new generation of the console war? (It looks like exclusivity may not be as strong for this generation as last, or would you refute this?)

For this generation, is it a detriment or still advantageous (or necessary) for a third party developer to be tied to developing exclusive titles?

What are the key exclusives which you are keeping an eye on to move sales for a specific console this year?

Read the full article over at gamasutra.com