| saxophonehero said: i had that exact same question. if the 360 was in the PS3 spot it would suffer alot. The Wii and PS3 have many 1st party games that become successful. The 360 has some 1st party support but highly rely on the efforts of third party support. that is why i question microsoft's long term chance of staying in the gaming business. |
What I think we're seeing here might be a long-term shift in gaming as we know it. Just as much of the business world has learned to do over the past 20 years, gaming might start to outsource. While massive companies like EA and ActiBlizzard will always fund and publish their own titles, smaller developers can maintain their independence and still remain financially secure through allowing a manufacturer to publish and fund their title to keep it exclusive.
It might work, it might not. So far, MS has done pretty well by themselves using this strategy (excepting some of the JRPGs, but even those have given it influence in the Japanese market, something it didn't have previous to Mistwalker). Mass Effect and Gears have been humongous successes for the company while they've faltered with smaller titles like Too Human.
Can this be maintained over the long haul? Dunno. Can this remain profitable if Ninty and Sony also enter the market to bid for these exclusive IPs? Dunno. But, as it stands now, it's been a pretty damned successful venture for Microsoft.
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