In the last generation, Sony didn't really have to buy off anyone for exclusives because it's userbase was so big, it didn't have to worry about the competition.  The generation before that, Sony didn't have to again either because Square came to them with FF7 since they liked the disc better than the cartridge. Thus, their rise to power. And the one before that Nintendo didn't have to worry about Sega because let's face it, everyone loved the NES/SNES more than the genesis.

It's safe to assume buying off exclusives and studios wasn't so important back then because all of the third-parties can choose who they want and they chose the one that the consumers want obviously.

That was, until Microsoft came into the picture in 2001 and with it's load of cash able to buy exclusives left and right.  They happened to have found their own S-E except in America, called bungie and immediately bought them off just so Sony couldn't get its hands on them. I believe Microsoft entering the gaming world made any competition realize now that if you don't have the cash cow to buy off exclusives/studios, you aren't going to out-bid them.

So now this gaming world will forever be about who has the money to buy off exclusives or studios and it already started since the last generation. Now third parties have to deal with hard decisons whether to be bought off and risk losing an audience.

Exclusives, because alot of companies lose important staff members after they are bought. Rare is an example of this.

Is there anyone even behind those desks at Rare?

 my thoughts exactly.

The OPs question is impossible to answer without having indepth knowledge in the field, any answer is pure uneducated speculation that does't count for anything?

No disrespect to yourself, but without having worked in this sort of thing how could anyone have the feintest idea?

You don't need to have firsthand experience to watch studios decline after being acquired.

In reality, I'd wager that studios are acquired more for brandname and IP than talent as those talented individuals aren't necessarily going to be there tomorrow.

Nintendo hasn't bought any exclusives so far, with the exception of publishing Fatal Frame 4. Last time I checked, they were doing ok.

I think it's definitely better to buy a studio than one game--hell, you can get some for less than Microsoft paid for Grand Theft Auto 4 DLC.

I would just like to add that Sony didn't care about Bungie because they were a Mac developer that had decided to make an RTS for PC when they caught the eye of Microsoft who then forced them to make it into an FPS for their console.

depends on the studio, studios like Capcom, Konami, Blizzard, Epic, and Sqare Enix are safe bets to acquire and worth it if possible. Studios like Tecmo, Ninja Theory, Guerilla Games, and Factor 5 are highly questionable. Exclusives may be more important cause you can test them out first before you buy.

If the studio was Square-Enix, Rockstar, Tecmo, Konami, Namco were the studios in question then it would make more sense to buy the studio but if it was Bioware or Activision it makes more sense to buy the game as an exclusive.