Sony and MS's approach to exclusive contents: which is better?

[Lord N]

Putting money into first and second party development is always better than using it to buy exclusives.

First and second party games bring in by far more profits. Look at the Gamecube, for example. It had the least third party support last generation, and yet, it was the only console to turn a consistent profit all the way through. The reason for this is that it had the strongest first party.

For all the money MS has thrown around, all that it's really managed to do is get several PS2 exclusives to go multi-platform and secure a few big name exclusives, and the 360 has still failed to turn a consistent profit.

The only way to guarantee massive exclusive third party support is to have the marketshare of the NES, PS1, or PS2, something that MS isn't going to accomplish any time soon.

Lastly, it takes a steady stream, a strong, standing library of games that appeal to everyone to move hardware and make a console successful, not just a few big name exclusives that appeal only to core and hardcore gamers.

MS doesn't have the market share to obtain the kind of exclusive third-party support that they are seeking no matter how much money they pay, and this is also going to hinder them when it comes to profits.