Would Gears of War even be where they are today without Microsoft and the Xbox 360? You can't assume that Gears of War would have been a big seller as a multi-plat without the Microsoft funding, without the Microsoft marketing machine, without the extra hype you get in the media for being an exclusive and for being the 2nd face of the Xbox 360 (Master Chief obviously being the 1st). Can you imagine if Midway (publisher for Epic's Unreal Tournament 3) was the Gears of War publisher? It would be a disaster. If anything, Microsoft needs to be less forgiving in their business deals with gaming companies. They played too soft with a number of companies (Tecmo, Namco Bandai, and most importantly, Bioware. They let Bioware keep the Mass Effect IP. Idiots). Sony on the other hand, is no-nonsense. They bought out all the studios before they got a chance to become big. And every single Sony-published title that made it big is owned by Sony (Heavy Rain seems niche so that's probably why Sony didn't require Quantam to sign over that IP to them). Bottom line, if you as a publisher are putting big bucks into the development and marketing of a new franchise, you have every right to demand ownership of the franchise during negotiations or at least have the developer contractually by the balls to make the franchise exclusive to your platform.
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