Its about time Microsoft start acquiring developer/s

[Squilliam]

AussieGecko said:

Squilliam said:

Nintendo is doing it right because their exclusives actually count for something and many sell millions of consoles. However given the path that both Microsoft and Sony have taken to truly stand out they have to outspend the 3rd party publishers which is a catch 22 when the games themselves are limited to only the userbase of their specific consoles as they are exclusives.

Microsoft as a publisher are doing pretty well for themselves. If you count home consoles they will outpublish Sony for 2010 which isn't bad considering how Sony is supposed to have that much of a bigger first party studio portfolio. It isn't the size really, it is what you do with what you have. What Microsoft did with what they and likely against the relative investment is probably significantly more cost effective than what Sony has done in this generation. Who are we to say that it is a poor strategy?

I am 100 percent in agreeance in that you have to use your games right exclusive or otherwise. But if one games consoles has x games and another console has x 4 games what has the better games library per se those 4 games are actually worth getting.

Right now MS knows how to advertise in their bases, thus its working, they still have Halo, Gears (under 3rd party) what Kinect can do and said games under their sleeves. Also Alan Wake and Crackdown and Forza etc if they continue supporting them correctly. BUT Alan wake is 3rd, Gears is 3rd, hell even a second party not necessarily part of MS, like Bungie was.

Microsoft needs something, they need their own IP's. Sony has been backed into a corner this gen and will fight back see Mass Effect for proof. Microsoft needs to show that they can fight back just as hard.

 

Just a thought anyway

It is better to have a Gears of War in the hand in 2006 than it is to have 4 Uncharted 2s or God of War 3s released in 2010. It is also better to have one Halo 3 in the hand in 2007 than it is to have a dozen exclusives with an average sell through of 1.5M each. You as a game buyer would also prefer one sublime game to three good games, wouldn't you? For starters that sublime game costs $60 whereas three good games would cost $180 assuming of course you don't sell any.

You can't look at the number of games/exclusives released or even their metacritic to say how good a first party has been. You need to also look at the number of hours sunk into each title. It is better for the game player that the exclusives released are both excellent and time sinks. Halo 3 for instance with >10M sold @ > 100 hours average is clocking at over a billion hours played. Those are McDonalds numbers. You can't say that they are short of any exclusives if people are still putting hours of game time into them today, a game is still worth something if it is still being played.

Now as for I.P. Well they are coming. You have to remember that a game with a new engine can take upwards of 3 years to make. So if they dedicated their teams to making new I.P for 2011 then they would have had to have started in 2008 or 2007 to make it for 2011. There is a significant time lag which must be accounted for. Thats the reason why Firebird Studio, Lionhead team 2, 343 studio and Rares teams have hardly been heard from. It is also the reason why new Kinect games don't really take advantage of Kinect, the engine technology is simply too new. I remember seeing the Unreal engine splash logo on a few of the games.