Can Microsoft continue to buy it's way to victory?

[Jereel Hunter]

kitler53 said:

Chromium24 said:

Skeeuk said:

    

    Microsoft keeps buying exclusives from third party, but how much longer can they go on doing this? Third parties will gladly accept the money to make a game exclusive to the 360, but it doesn’t come cheap, and doesn’t always pay off. If Microsoft were smart they would put the money  they are wasting on third party, and get some first party started. These days a console can’t live on just third party, especially with Sony going all out on their first party. Modern games are so expensive to make these days, that a third party would need a really good reason to make their game exclusive. 

    

This paragraph is very true. Microsofts 1st parties are almost non-existant. They have a few good exclusives, but if you look at their top games on IGN or Metacritic they're mostly multiplats like GTA, Bioshock, etc. That is excluding games like Mass Effect, Gears of War and Halo which are great.

 

I think the may point to take is - mass effect, bioshock's time exclusivity, rock band's time exclusivity, GTA's exclusive dlc, portal's dlc, ect., MS is paying for this competitive advantage.  the more ps3s in the world (regardless of market share) the higher cost MS will have to pay to keep those advantages.  how long until it is cost prohibitive for MS?  and what then? will MS's "almost non-existant" first party be the only ones creating exclusive content for the 360?

i'll be honest, i hope so.  MS, if you want to have content to define your console please spend more time making awesome content for your console and less time playing interference on the compitition.

 

Is this really what you want? If MS decided to shift into hardcore First Party mode like Sony, they wouldn't create new studios. They'd do what they did with Bungie... See what they like, and start buying already established ones. That would start turning these timed exclusives into permanant exclusives. Sound good?