Microsoft was not the publisher for NG2, only the distributor.

As seen at Xbox. com NG II was published by Tecmo. Also, that means Sony has no answer to Gears and Halo and Kinect Adventures or Minecraft.

That's interesting, because of Sonys existing 2016 lineup, Streetfighter and Ratchet and Clank were IP's created by external parties and Uncharted, Dreams and Horizon are all from Studios Sony purchased..but hey, the last guardian, that's new and built internally right? It's not like Ueda used to work with Sega or anything.

I guess the only hope on this matter is for Microsoft to never entrust an IP to a seperate internally built studio or another external partner. Microsoft would never do that. They wouldn't do that with Gears of War or Halo, especially a theoretical Halo RTS. They especially wouldn't do it with Crackdown.

No. Anything Microsoft publishes on Xbox platforms is first party. It could not be anything else otherwise. Name another first party on Xbox aside from Microsoft.

Microsoft is publishing RotTR on Xbox One and Xbox 360, it will have the Microsoft Studios spash screen on bootup. Microsoft nets the majority of the money from sales of RotTR on Xbox because they're the publisher.

They won't be the publisher for the PC (presumably) version or the PS4 version, so those versions would not be first party, unless Sony acted as publisher for the PS4 version. 

Here's some good examples of definitions:

Forza Motorsport Series - Studio and IP owned, Microsoft Published - First Party game, first party studio

Forza Horizon Series - Studio not owned, IP is owned, Microsoft Published - First party game, 3rd party studio

Sunset Overdrive - Studio and IP not owned, Microsoft Published - First Party game (not franchise), 3rd party studio - franchise potentially could go multiplatform if published by a publisher that isn't Microsoft. Singular published game may be exempt from other consoles if initial publisher has exclusive publishing rights (Ryse or Dead Rising 3)

***Rise of the Tomb Raider is this one - but the publishing rights are timed, which means after 12 months, they revert back to Square Enix and they can publish the game on PS4**

Titanfall - Studio and IP not owned, EA Published - 3rd party exclusive, Microsoft saved TF by picking up the funding when EA were going to can it. Future titles can be on any platform.

2nd party - Does not actually exist, used to be used to denote 3rd party studios who only worked with one first party publisher.

Microsoft owns the IP of any company they purchase. He was making the distinction between buying the IP and buying the company.

Kinect was pretty creative, if crap...and successful.

Sony has 3 real success storie of internally developed studios: Sony Santa Monica, Team ICO and Polyphony Digital....10 years ago

Of the first party studios they own or have owned, the following were all external studios that they purchased:

• Naughty Dog
• Sony Bend (Eidetic)
  
• Sony San Diego (989 Studios)
  
• Suckerpunch
• Evolution Studios
• Geurilla Games

• SCE London (Team Soho) (CLOSED)
  
• SCE Liverpool (Psygnosis)(CLOSED)
• Zipper Interactive(CLOSED)
• Incognito Entertainment(CLOSED)
• BigBig Studios(CLOSED)

This is Sonys current home grown development :

• Japan Studio
• Polyphony Digital
• Sony Santa Monica
• Pixelopus
• Northwest Studio
• SCE CAMBRIDGE

The first 3 would have been hot shiz in 2005, today, they are merely adequate, Northwest and SCE Cambridge are working exclusively on Morpheous now, leaving pixelopus who made a PSN game. Be honest, whos games are you more excited for. The underlined or the vanilla.

Microsofts most successful internal built studios are as follows:

Turn 10 - Forza

343 Ind - Halo (IP was not theirs initially, but they have owned the IP since before it was even a FPS)

Good Science - Kinect / Adventures commercial success

Team Dakota - Project Spark

TBC on The Coallition (although should be same as 343) and Decisive Games

The purchase was largely as a result of Xbox. Phil Spencer acted on Notchs comments about selling for $2B and they put the deal together. Notch was happy with it because he had a good experience with MS when they ported MC to 360.

If Xbox had never existed, Minecraft would not presently be owned by Microsoft. Sure, MS greenlit the purchase price because Minecraft is something of value in other areas (mobile), but it wasn't souly motivated by that.

Uncharted 1 and 2,  inFAMOUS, infamous 2, Killzone 3, god of war : ascension, Shadow of the collossus, several Ratchet and Clank games, Sly Cooper 1-4 The Last of Us.

Sony said all these games would be PS3 exclusive and now they're streaming on PlayStation®4, PlayStation®Vita, PlayStation®TV, select Sony TVs, select Sony Blu-ray Players, and select Samsung Smart TVs.

PGR3 came out in 2005 and is still Xbox 360 exclusive. Just sayin'

Sunset Overdrive is second party and Microsoft published it. Publishing does not denote ownership.

No one said Microsoft owned the SSO franchise. Insomniac Games is a 3rd party studio and own the IP, they are however not a publisher in any way, shape or form. Microsoft is. And when they publish a game on a console they manufacture, it's a first party game.

From the man who watches

"Releasing new IP and making it stand out is always a challenge, especially when you got Call of Duty coming with a massive game, you've got Assassin's Creed coming with another great game, you've got Halo there, and here we are with Sunset and in the end the number of bundles and custom consoles you do is not a huge percentage of the game sales, but I wanted to put a stake out there, our first time working with Ted [Price] and the team Insomniac, that this is really a first party game for us and we're really behind it."

No. A First party denotes ownership of said intellectual property overall. Microsoft owns the IP to Quantum Break and Scalebound, but they are both made by third party, hence why its definitively called first party. The deal to make the games gave them the rights from the start to the IP as their own property. The struggle over intellectual property with Sony is why they went to Microsoft. They dont want anyone owning their game, its theirs. They just need to find a publisher and Microsoft needed games so they published it.

Let me create an example for you. Marvel/Disney owns the rights to the Marvel family of games, but Activision develops and publishes the games via a license. Through the license, Disney and Marvel collect fees even though they dont publish because they own the Licensce and through ownership collect royalties and other things from the game because of the value of their product when other vendors feel the need to create a business proposition to create games from said companies IP license. Recently Marvel stripped Activision of their rights to their games license and all Activision made games were stripped from PSN and Xbox Live.

This is what it means to truly be first party, to have sole ownership of said intellectual property.

😂 you are correct 

I never saw this post, but my point is Sony has all bases covered from a first, second and third party end. They can actually create their own IP's as well as commission. Im sure Sony's devs are up there on many peoples lists as some of the top devs in the industry. Outside of Forza and Fable, Microsoft has shown no such ability to create IP's themselves. My issue isnt with them is that they are almost solely reliant on third party for AAA new IP's. From that perspective its easy to see that Sony and Nintendo are on a whole level in creativity even though they dont have as much money. Its also noticable in gaming droughts because strategically Microsoft and Nintendo are the ones who have the hardest time there. With Nintendo its third party and with Microsoft its first party when the third party publishing stops 2/3 of the way through the gen and they start relying more and more on sequels.

Actually, you are so wrong on this it is remarkable. Being first or 3rd party has no relation to IP ownership. It's relative to a publishers relation to the hardware they publish on. Here is the definition in relation to video games:

Adjective

first-party (not comparable)

1. Of or relating to someone directly involved in a given transaction, such as a buyer or seller.
2. Of or relating to the plaintiff in a lawsuit.
3. (video games) Of a video game, developed or published by company responsible for the platform on which it is released (or its internal developers), as opposed to third-party.

Microsoft is the only first party publisher on Xbox consoles. Xbox. Xbox 360. Xbox One. Full stop. The couldn't be 2nd party of 3rd party if they tried. Unless you want to argue that fact. Anything Microsoft publishes on Xbox consoles is a FIRST PARTY GAME. That includes games from Studios and IPS that don't fall under their ownership.

At best you could say Insomniac and the Sunset Overdrive IP are not first party (they are not second party either), they are 3rd party. But the Sunset Overdrive videogame that came out last year is first party as it falls under Microsofts publishing arm.

This is a redundant example, neither Activision or Disney manufacture Xbox or Playstion consoles so could never be anything but 3rd party unless Activision or Disney start manufacturing consoles of their own.

What are your thoughts on this years lineup given that The Order, Bloodborne, Until Dawn and The MLB license were all products originating outside of Sonys internal studios? That's a year and a half gap between any idea conceived by them, could you explain how that shows Sonys 1st party is covered during that period of time? This is assuming Knack and Driveclub were "bases covered" quality.

What's your definition of AAA? Sales or scores? Because Knack and Driveclub garnered neither and every other new IP on PS4 up until Holiday 2016 comes from third parties.

In fact the only new IP of note on the Horizon... is Horizon, which was born out of Killzones declining stagnent receptions then a drive to create new IP.