If Sony is willing to put up a bunch of money to get a game made with a 3rd party company like Square, and if Square wouldn't have been able to make the game otherwise, then being an exclusive could be the only reason it exists.

Similar to Alan Wake 2, which I still haven't played, it's possible that this game owes its existence to the exclusivity agreement giving the necessary upfront funds to get the game development going.

But this isn't like the previous generations of exclusive consoles. These consoles are significantly more expensive, development on video games is significantly more expensive, and the profit margin that you could make from being exclusive to just a single console is significantly lower.

This is a combination of ballooning budgets, expensive hardware with lower sales, and the PC gaming market looming over Sony and Microsoft's shoulders. And don't forget to mention the explosion of the free to play, micro transaction riddled games they also have to compete with for screen time now.

Does this mean exclusives will go away? Probably not. If it's financially beneficial to go exclusive, they'll do it again.

But it does mean that the gap between the potential gained revenue of not going exclusive and the potential locked in revenue from the exclusivity agreement is currently looking razor thin.