Just like MGS, FF and many others were for Playstation. MS will have to play alot to EPIC to hold on that franchise. EPIC can sell over 10 million compared to just 6 million on 1 platform. Lets say Epic will get $35 from every game sold, thats $175 million dollars if they sell 5 million copies. Can MS afford to pay that much for just 1 game? When they can create many studios and franchises they own with that kind of money. And thats what they are doing right now.

I am aware that Epic is 3rd party and Gears is their franchise. The OP implied MS would just kind of let the franchise go and not even try to secure it for another generation and I am just saying it's too big a franchise to the Xbox for MS to just sit on their hands and allow $ony to get a taste of it as well. Not saying Epic still won't take it multiplatform, just that MS will surely try to keep it on Xbox and away from $ony.

How was Gears of War a waste of publishing resources. Gears 3 sold more in a single week than GT5 did in all of 2010.

And what's this garbage about it not being Xbox exclusive next gen? If Epic were that keen to break publishing ties with Microsoft, they would have done it after Gears 2, yet they still had 7 million reasons to make Gears 3 exclusive and another 5 million to make Judgement the same. Why does next gen even have to affect it at all?

Epic still needs a publisher to release retail games on console and Microsoft did an infinitely better job for Epic then Midway and EA.

The real question that is getting passed over in this thread is this. How much of Gears success is self generated, and how much is generated by Microsoft's marketing machine. Microsoft isn't just getting a exclusive game. They are putting their might behind making it into a success. For all the talk of how much more it could sell if the game were released on multiple platforms. We are kind of ignoring how much it sold, because it was a exclusive.

No doubt Epic could go its own merry way, but there is a very real tradeoff. In that they will be the ones who have to come up with a way to make up that shortfall. Their title Unreal Tournament 3 didn't exactly fair better by being on multiple platforms did it now. I bet that one totally slipped your minds, and I have to wonder why that is. Microsoft is a real force multiplier for Epic.

Seems like a strange notion to abandon a formula that is working wonders. Anyway I am far more interested in the Fortnite game. Which is what is announced for next year. It looks like it could be some sick fun.

Forza should stop with the yearly releases, the game struggles to sell as it is, so spamming it will only hurt it, microsoft should slow it down a bit.