Third parties want to sell as many full-priced copies of their games as possible for as few platforms as possible. Previously, third parties had an interest in promoting a new gen, because the extra features and power allowed them to do more with their games which would stimulate sales. Porting new games to the previous gen was impossible or would present an incomplete experience.

Next gen is different. The PS4 and 720 will not be much in power above the current gen, insofar as they both can display realistic worlds in high-definition. An Assassins Creed that was developed for 720, if backported to 360, would lose some effects, shaders, lines of resolution, and texture quality but it would be fundamentally the same game and the same experience in the way that a PS3 game ported to PS2 would not.

The 360 and PS3 represent a 140m installed base of the buyers third parties want. When next-gen launches, even at full capacity there will only be 5-10m sold in the first year. When a publisher is making a market decision about which platforms to go for, they will have to launch PS3 and 360 versions of their new titles at the first and possibly second Christmases of next-gen. Call of Duty certainly will. With such little difference between the gens, people might be willing to pay a little extra but, in this economy, not a whole $400 console extra to get the improved graphics. On installed base alone we will see people overwhelmingly choose the 360 and PS3 versions.

Third parties will see this, see their games in development and the ease of backporting by changing a few quality settings, and continue to release PS3 and 360 versions of the important titles. They have no obligation to MS and Sony to support their next gen launches. Then PS4 and 720 will lack killer apps and effectively, as we see with Wii U, be competing with current gen consoles for the same games, which they will surely lose. The smaller third parties may not even want to move to the increased budgets and smaller installed bases of next gen at all.

It will be up to first party titles to persuade customers to purchase PS4 and 720.

Pretty sure MS and Sony would just moneyhat them for exclusives.

They'd have to pay them a LOT to get them to ignore the huge disparity in userbase. They'd be paying for it to not launch on THREE other platforms, not just the other one like this gen.

I agree this is possible, but then Sony and MS would be abandoning game division profit for at least two years. Sony, at least, cannot afford that.

Doubt we'll be seeing many exclusive 3rd party games for next gen. If i was a 3rd party developer I'd be in self-interst have all my games on as many consoles as possible to make the most money possible.

MS would be willing to do it. Sony yeah I don't see them paying for exclusives.

Sounds pretty reasonable; but there's always people that want all the latest stuff and the best graphics. But I agree with that it might be a slow starting gen, but I'm sure it'll start to pick up steam after a few years

Lucky then that Sony seem to have all there studios making PS4 games! Next gen I think will become very much first party for me unless 3rd parties put more effort In. This gen Sony was the only publisher for me making the constant great games with new things. I loved Portal 2 and a few others of course but near the end its alot of FPS and things.
Although Watch Dogs & Star Wars 1313 look fantastic! Sloping for Ps4 launch games

I would hope next gen MS stop paying for exclusives and rubbish DLC and invest a lot more in there own game development creating new and exciting IPs. I really liked the Xbox1. The 360 for me is by far the worst system I ever owned so I hope they really get me back next gen! 

I agree with this for the first (max 2) years on the the market, after that publishers and devs will move on completely to the PS4 ad the 720. There's absolutely no doubt the next Call of Duty is going to be on the 360 and PS3 (with a port to the new consoles) so those players won't jump to the new consoles, even less if they cost $400+. 

The problem about first parties is that it will only attract the fans of the company, and those people are the ones who are going to buy the console anyway (regardless of the first party tittles). People are talking thrash about the Wii U sales (which they are honestly) but I expect the new consoles to have similar numbers at first.

If it sells as badly as Wii U has for those first two years (and Wii U actually had two big exclusive games as well as a big reason to buy the hardware), I do wonder whether the market will just ditch both and go back to PS3/360.