I disagree completely.  Take Bioshock.  It launched as a 360 exclusive, every impression given was that it wasn't ever going to be on the PS3.  At the time that was the only impression given, and it was misleading as it was coming to the PS3 after a period of contracted exclusivity which forced this information to be withheld from the buying public.  This sort of thing has to be judged as it was, not in retrospect when we know it was timed.  I think you know as well as I the impression given in these cases, particularly early on before it became apparent that many of these so called exclusives were in fact only timed.

Even with DLC such as GTAIV the impression is that the DLC is for 360 only, paid for by MS, etc. then low and behold it's not - it was timed.  This misleads the consumer, period, which is why it is a poor business practice, whoever does it, whether Sony with Ghostbusters in Europe or MS with titles like Bioshock globally.

It's clear many people thought these titles/DLC would never hit the PS3 and were therefore mislead by the nature of the timed exclusive - look at the Japanese resoponse to ToV, etc. in that region I'd say once the whole timed approach was exposed it hurt the 360's brand due to the negative perception of the tactic.  Those consumers sure felt mislead.

It's not whether for that period it's only available on one platform, it's the fact it's known to be coming to another and that fact is surpressed that clearly misleads.

Buying timed exclusives in my opinion is such a waste of money, They could have used those resources to build up great new IP's such as Sony is doing but instead they foolishly focus on buying GTA: stories and countless others only to let it go multi later and with new content!!!...which in turn pisses off that same userbase it has been trying to build!! If Mass Effect2 goes multi I swear it will be the last straw

Buying timed exclusives in my opinion is such a waste of money, They could have used those resources to build up great new IP's such as Sony is doing but instead they foolishly focus on buying GTA: stories and countless others only to let it go multi later and with new content!!!...which in turn pisses off that same userbase it has been trying to build!! If Mass Effect2 goes multi I swear it will be the last straw

You talk about impressions as if they're factual statements given by a company, but people assume whatever they want from these impressions. It shouldn't be on the company to lay everything out for you cut and dry, especially when such things would hurt their business.

Just like when companies like Sony almost lie to their investors "We'll turn profit next quarter". They spin it so that they can restore investor confidence. MS doesn't even spin anything (in regards to this exclusive thing at least), they just omit certain things. Spinning the truth, or omitting parts of the truth, which do you really think is worse?

As for the Japanese response thing, the Japanese seem to hate everything MS anyways. It doesn't matter what they do over there, the Japanese will probably never trust MS anyways, which is just silly to me.

In the end, all companies do whatever they can to get ahead. Even Sony and Nintendo and plenty of other companies resort to these tactics. At the end of the day, mostly all that matters is money. As long as you understand and appreciate that, then something like this whole timed exclusive thing shouldn't even faze you.

MS haters will always be MS haters, and they like these sorts of things to justify their disdain. Most people don't even care about all this. "Oh Bioshock is on PS3 now? Cool"

To this day that has never been CONFIRMED. It's a strong rumour, but never confirmed, so for all we know Rockstar could've done this for free. That's one thing that i would like to disuss, why is it that everytimes Microsoft secures timed exclusivity, or a console excluive from a thrid party developer, people automatically think that they paid a ridiculous amount of money, or that their hand was forced by Microsoft in some shady business practice. It's getting old. Developers love to create games on a system that is not only successful in the marketshare, but has the largest attach rate with consumers from all other consoles, and is easy developer friendly, with familiar tools from their PC experience, or engines.

While most people do vastly exagerate this, it's also pretty clear that some business transaction takes place to secure these.  Developers love to develop games and make money.  When there's a clearly dominant console they'll develop for that.  This gen that isn't the case and there are more than enough quotes from more than enough developers to indicate most feel multi-platform is the only way to go - therefore either others just see it differently (a possibility of course) or MS are paying in some form (another possibility and one that I think is just more likely).

Business is that, business, and behind these decisions are almost certainly transactions of some form or other.

Look at the annoucement FFXIII will only have bundles on 360 in West.  There is no reason SE would do that unless given some inducement by MS, absolutely none.  Just like there must have been some inducement for them to not support 360 in Japan (and probably the two are even linked).

What about Yoihci Wada's love for all things Western? And his desire for Western gaming to penetrate the Eastern market more and vice versa? There are so many factors, don't just assume something because it seems to be the most obvious choice.

Assumptions are the root of ignorance, don't fall for it, I know you're smarter than that.

I'm not saying it's impossible that there isn't a transaction, but don't just make an assumption based of a small percentage of the truth. Maybe it's more likely that limited resources + harder to develop for PS3 make it undoable at time of original release. MS can bank on that saying "Only on Xbox" and get away with it for a while. Until something concrete comes out (though it could be false anyways), there's no way to know.

Oh I'm not making assumptions.  I'm trained in maths and statistics so I just see probabilities.  For me it's simply more probable some form of business transaction is involved.  Note by that I don't mean a straight 'brown evelope' job.  It could be other incentives around creative freedom or advertising support - for example MS could be paying for FFXIII advertising in US in exchange for the bundles.

Or it may not directly involve money but other elements of business, favourable future support, access to more development support on the tech, etc.

Everything I think simply ranks in probabilities and in business it's simply more likely to be some form of transaction that mere goodwill or a desire to work with a specific company.  On the other hand - it could be those things as something being more probable doesn't mean the facts aren't actually different.

So I don't think I'm making assumptions, I normally avoid them like the plague.  I'm just looking at what's most/least likely plus known company behaviour - for example MS has a history of using various incentives to attract people to support it, as do Sony,

Okay, I can understand that, I do a similar thing, but I refrain from making conclusions typically (keyword here haha). I guess I myself assumed you were making an assumption. Haha, curses!

Don't get me wrong about all this, I think there's some sort of transaction as well, I just like to try to point out all the sides of an arguement.