Third parties are more important, bundles like the COD BO III bundle are insane in sales. Seriously Nintendo's WiiU is mostly a first party console with almost all bundles from first party games and how did it do for Nintendo? A game like like COD BOIII ps4 is on it's way (or already did) to sell more than Wii U's hardware.

They  know they can sit back and let GTA do all the work alone.

With Evo, DriveClub was not only delayed (originally supposed to be a launch window title), I remember reading rumours that the game had to be rebuilt, new teams brought in, and then when it launched it was a mess, even with the success it seems to have now I wonder if it'll ever recoup the cost of development.

I wonder if ultimately Sony gave them more freedom to do what they wanted, because it didn't really make sense when Sony already had GT, and then when things went wrong that freedom meant they couldn't hide, they had to eat the bullet. A shame, I really enjoyed MotorStorm.

I don't know enough about Lionhead, but it sounds like they were never getting anywhere/gaining any traction with their game.

These companies have money, yes, but if you keep throwing money at things that don't make money back your going to run into problems, and your shareholders will expect you to deal with it.

Driveclub being delayed for over a year and coming out broken loosing them a lot of Money doesn't say why they closed Evolution?

Unfortunately Driveclub turned out to be one of the best racers I've played.

Oh Jesus Tapdancing Christ.....Most anybody who has played Driveclub knows that it's at least decent (better than decent really), and that the reviews are reflective of the state the game launched in, not the game it became. I'm also pretty sure that MotorStorm 1-3 are all very good games, and would be considered as such by a majority of fans. 84, 82, and 77 are their respective meta-scores. GTFOH with that ****.

- Moderated

Guiduc

industry not healthy enough to maintain low/mid tier AAA studios.

Microsoft closes them because it doesn't matter since Sony wins anyway.
Sony closes them because it doesn't matter since Sony wins anyway.

Well the last fable on 360 sold more then the last zelda on wii.

Fable was one of the bigger microsoft IPs, I think it was right behind halo, maybe on the same step with gears or even higher.

Yep. Not only do they get to easily walk away and cut their losses if working with the third-party studio was a bad idea......they also don't need to worry about the expenses and all of the headaches associated with owning a studio. They give the studio a contract and they take care of the rest.

Many publishers in Japan frequently partner with a whole bunch of contractors nowadays to finish their games....Sony and Microsoft seem to be following in their stead.

Not to mention, Nintendo already does this to a significant degree with studios like Platinum, Camelot, and AlphaDream.