Sony doubtful about future exclusivity deals.

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ZenfoldorVGI said:

Good for the company that they're looking out for profits, bad for PS3 exclusive count, because MS is also bringing in developers to its first party, but on top of that, they are securing exclusivity deals, and taking the free exclusivity Sony has enjoyed for a while, away from the console.

Publishers like Square-Enix can and will obviously go to the highest bidder. If Sony isn't bidding anything, they're not gonna keep a lot of exclusives, and the 360 might even get a couple.

It appears Konami and Kojima are ready to go multiplat with their development next wave of games according to his recent comments about MGS4(Not MGS4 itself, but Kojima said he's be open to developing on the PC and porting to consoles, so people would stop bothering him about hardware). You know Capcom is down for anything that makes them money in any way.

I mean, Sony can talk about how they aren't gonna spend any money on publishers anymore, all they want, but there are times when you need to move a little money around to keep up. It's hard to get into specifics without someone trying to burn me down, but let's say Microsoft starts paying EA to release their games a week early on the 360. Sony would have to respond to that. Their, "We don't negotiate with terrorists" motto just can't hold water for too long, when publishers have nothing to lose but free Microsoft money.

Sony didn't beat Nintendo for 2 generations by NOT spending money on 3rd party publishers.

 

Mind telling me who? After the creation of Mistwalker (who is still wholly independent), all Microsoft has done is let BioWare and Biazarre get picked up other publishers.  Who knows what's going on with Itigaki, but Team Ninja is now defunct, so I don't expect to be seeing new versions of Dead or Alive or Ninja Gaiden on the way, at least none developed by the original team or exclusive to the 360.

If Microsoft was really doing what you say, they would've bought BioWare, Bizarre, and grabbed Itigaki the moment he left Tecmo, as these were all developers to which Microsoft had very strong ties, much like the relationship between Sony and Zipper, Geurrilla, and Evolution Studios before buying each.

And then there's the little issue of Bungie now being second party (though they will still be making exclusives in the future, so it's a moot point, really - but still, one less developer Microsoft can claim as being "first party").

My main issue with the 360 at the moment is Microsoft's lack of first party titles.  Most of their exclusives are merely timed, as usually the best contract they can make with a third party is 6-12 months of exclusivity, like Bioshock and Eternal Sonata.  Only titles that MS themselves publish stay exclusive, though even many of those find there way to the PC at some point (Gears of War was announced for friggin' Macs!).

The only developer Microsoft owns whom I really like is Ensemble Studios (whom I LOVE - AoEII and AoM are awesome), and Halo Wars is their first console game, and thus my first real temptation to buy a 360 - or would be, were it not for the knowledge that the game will likely end up on PC down the line, and probably be much better for it, seeing as it is an RTS.  Other than that, there's not much for me that Microsoft offers, and it seems to me as if their first and second parties have only gotten smaller since the beginning of this generation.  They have stepped up the third party game, but, like I said, those usually only stay exclusive for a year at best, and most are now multiplat from the getgo.