I'm glad to see 3rd party exclusives fade away. I think it was a black mark on gaming at the start of this generation.
It was an interesting situation, though. I still wonder if Microsoft regretted buying all those exclusives and 1 year timed exclusives, or if they think it worked out well enough for them. I believe the way it kind of backfired is the reason they stopped doing it, however. Although, they might have simply done it to gain leverage early and intended to stop later, who knows for sure. Or they might have been trying to crush everyone else completely in classic Microsoft style.
Regardless, Sony's answer was perfect. They implemented a policy that required any game being ported over after the end of a timed exclusive contract to be a superior version with extra content. That resulted in the PS3 getting the best version, even if it was a year late.
Later they switched to buying timed exclusive map packs and DLC, which I think has worked out better for them. And in Japan, they bought a TON of exclusive games and licenses in order to bring the 360 up to par with Sony and Nintendo, but that failed completely. I wonder how much money they spent on that initiative?
I'm just glad the practice has died out for the most part. I don't think 3rd party games should be exclusive unless they are designed around what that system can do. 1st party games are, of course, different. Many of them are built from the ground up with that system's strengths and weaknesses in mind. Kill Zone 3, for example, was designed to lean heavily on the PS3's satellite CPUs, something which the 360 doesn't have, so it would take a massive overhaul to appear on a different system.
Now we just need to get rid of timed DLC, which I bloody despise.
