This is not the first time microsoft has published third party similar to Sony's games

[NightDragon83]

Scoobes said:

NightDragon83 said:
This is all hilarious considering Sony built the PlayStation brand's success by wresting away existing 3rd party IP after 3rd party IP from the competition while simultaneously buying up or contracting exclusive publishing agreements with 3rd party studios to build up their own "1st party" library during the PS1 & 2 days.

Check out the lists of top selling PS1 and 2 games of all time here on VGChartz, and show me how many games near the top in each were original IPs developed from the ground up by Sony's own internal studios?

http://www.vgchartz.com/platform/5/playstation/

http://www.vgchartz.com/platform/4/playstation-2/

Besides the Gran Turismo series, there are zero original Sony-developed IPs in the top 20 for either console... all other titles were either from existing studios that Sony eventually bought such as Naughty Dog or had exclusive publishing rights to such as Insomniac, or were from 3rd party studios outright, several of which Sony published such as FFVII, the original Kingdom Hearts, and the Tekken franchise which was exclusive to Sony platforms until Tekken 6.

But how dare M$ try to secure exclusive rights to Sony "franchises" like Tomb Raider, right? But it was OK when 3rd party franchises that were former Nintendo exclusives like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Mega Man, etc all made the jump to Sony.

As I said before, it made sense for Sony to buy out developers in the PS1 era because they pretty much didn't have any of their own. Less so in the PS2 days when Sony were still reliant on third parties, but by the PS3, Sony had allowed these purchased developers to fluorish.

MS have been in the console business for a long time now; plenty of time for them to have a diverse and large enough portfolio of first party games that these third party deals should not be that important. If we look at the studios they have built up at the start of the gen, their first party output should be massive.

Oh, but they are important, because despite Sony having a much stronger stable of 1st party studios and IPs over the past gen with the PS3 and now the PS4 (of which Sony fans are always quick to remind everyone, of course), the fact remains that generation after generation it's the 3rd party titles that are the driving force behind console sales for Sony, not their own IPS.  Here's the current top 10 best selling PS4 games... notice how many are developed or published by Sony or Sony's developers are present here:

Pos	Game	Year	Genre	Publisher	North America	Europe	Japan	Rest of World	Global
1.	Grand Theft Auto V	2014	Action	Take-Two Interactive	2.43	3.11	0.18	1.47	7.19
2.	Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare	2014	Shooter	Activision	2.53	2.77	0.12	1.33	6.76
3.	FIFA 15	2014	Sports	Electronic Arts	0.65	3.85	0.04	1.69	6.21
4.	Destiny	2014	Action	Activision	2.17	1.75	0.14	0.87	4.94
5.	Watch Dogs	2014	Action	Ubisoft	1.29	1.57	0.10	0.75	3.70
6.	Assassin's Creed: Unity	2014	Action	Ubisoft	0.89	1.61	0.07	0.74	3.32
7.	Far Cry 4	2014	Shooter	Ubisoft	0.83	1.63	0.07	0.74	3.28
8.	The Last of Us	2014	Adventure	Sony Computer Entertainment	1.36	1.14	0.07	0.57	3.14
9.	Call of Duty: Ghosts	2013	Shooter	Activision	1.56	1.22	0.05	0.27	3.10
10.	FIFA Soccer 14	2013	Sports	Electronic Arts	0.56	1.79	0.11	0.30	2.76

http://www.vgchartz.com/platform/69/playstation-4/

Only one 1st party title is in the top 10... and it's a "remastered" version of a last gen game.  And all the rest of the top 10 games are multiplatform  / cross gen titles as well.  You have to go all the way down to #14 on the list to find the first 1st party title in the sales charts that's also exclusive to PS4.  3rd party titles and the perception that the PS4 is the lead platform for said games are the reason the PS4 is leading in sales... not because of the supposed strength of Sony's stable of 1st party exclusives.