Here's my take on things:  Nintendo leaned towards casual (and even they haven't forsaken the hardcore) because they couldn't continue to compete with Microsoft and Sony on the "hardcore" front.  Microsoft has sold the vast majority of their games to hardcore gamers.  Games like Black Ops, Halo, and Gears of War have gamers lining up outside of stores to purchase in record-breaking numbers on day-1.  Now why in the hell would Microsoft suddenly forget about all of that money?

In the words of Chloe's ass (Uncharted 2), "You leave with the one that brought you to the dance."  Casuals can't fucking dance!!

Considering only two of those titles are exclusive, I think that answers his question. Oh well, there are some high profile multiplats releasing next year, which should keep 360 and ps3 gamers happy.

how does a list of third-party, multi-plat games for the 360  answer his question about MS investment in exlcusives?

He wanted to know microsoft support for core gamers so I gave him a list where he can count exclusives and decide for himself how well MS is supporting their console.

MS has never had a huge first party line up... why is this suddenly new?

oh gotcha, i guess i just assumed you meant for him to look at and be impressed by MS's awesome support of games in the future.  my bad for making an assumption.

Must have missed the multi-plat announcement for Gears 3 and Forza 4... damn I need to start paying attention, dammit

Yeah, because Nintendo only make "casual" games for Wii right?

yeah i was trying to say this in my post by saying it is also a shooter console (see goldeneye and cod atm) but I dunno, just didnt work haha

They´d be crazy and extremely stupid to stop bothering with (the word you forgot in the title, OP) core gamers who don´t care about Kinect.