Poor excuse,twist and turn never works.

i've bought the 360 to play games not available anywhere else, not because i want to play games already available everywhere else.

Well writen article Squiliam , i am in this theory too. Business is business and its very difficult for fanboys to understand the real reason why a company use a marketing tactic for its future plans. So fanboys are using speculations that is line with their believes. Thus , very possible the "brains" in that marketing-stragetic plan even using (for their favor) the inability of fanboys to realise the real purpose behind a giand corporation movement.

Nice article. Does this mean that next Halo titles will be high profit, low cost Kinect minigames developed under licence by 3rd parties?

sure its good for the business but not good for the consumer. I guess another reason businesses make exclusives for their consoles is to satisfy their customers. Microsoft wouldn't be getting much criticism right now if they actually owned a big first party. Not only that exclusives help build up the brand. Its always good to have many exclusives/ 

I agree with the bolded.

or....

The Microsoft is just executing a standard North American business model...

Which is contract exclusives to ensure agility and profitability of the business in good and bad times.  Not having a bunch of exclusive studios through the financial crisis over the past couple years has probably helped keep the 360 profitable.  By contracting exclusives they only incur cost when they think they will make profit.

Also, contracting exclusives rather then through 1st party studios helps with keeping studios lean.  The best studios survive because they get contracts to build games and the bad ones fail to oblivion.

Think you missed the point, though.  360 owners have plenty of great games to play now, whether they are exclusive or not.  How is that bad for consumers that want to play games and not show off a list of games you can't play anywhere else and chant "neener, neener, neeeeeeeeenerrrrrrr"?

Regardless of your own opinion regarding the talent of Microsoft's dev teams, you have to admit that they can produce a title that does indeed sell consoles, fill out their gaming library, and makes money. They have shown this with Halo and to a lesser extent, gears. Of course, without Bungie, the halo series may fall, but I believe the brand power will be enough to make it a relevant shooter for at least all of next gen.

Bungie was MS easily best team, and Halo is the very definition of killer app. But Gears is made by Epic Games which are not a Microsoft game studio.

Whoops, forgot about that. Either way though, Microsoft can make an exclusive that is extremely successful.