Sweet, this could explain why Quantic stated they are sticking to PS3 exclusives for their next title.

This is an incredibly smart move on Sony's part. QD isn't losing anything.

Wrong, and wrong again. You may think you are correct, yet you have 0 evidence of what you are insinuating.

You said sony aquires developers soley to fit gaps in their established line-up. That's why if one of sony's franchises is delayed, by your own statement, every other title must also be delayed.

@thismeinteil & Tridrakious

Regardless of what hardware the next generation brings, my point is that QD should be free to choose the platform they want to develop for, because they do a lot of exploration with how we interact with our games. Sony buying them might be a win for Sony, but it could be a loss for the industry as a whole, and I care a lot more about gaming as a whole than I do about Sony.

Right now they have deals with Sony to be exclusive because they feel the PS3 suits their needs really well, and Sony is a great publisher for them. They have all the benefits of being a first party developer without being locked to Sony's hardware. If a new platform comes along that is much more suited for their games in the next generation, it would be a huge loss to the industry if QD couldn't develop games for it in my opinion.

would make sense from Sony point of view given HR sales and generally favourable critical perception.  They gain a studio to focus on more innovative titles and can PR the kudos that comes with that.

For QD I see pros and cons.  Obvious Pro is financial support and coverage allowing them to more easily pursue their goals and the confirmed focus on one piece of HW would allow them to keep costs a little lower and get direct support from Sony tech teams.

The main con I see is that, with more innovative or niche titles, from a sales perspective you want to be able to cast the net wider.  An obvious example would be Alan Wake, which if it had released on PS3/PC as well would surely have more than doubled it's 360 total.

But... if QD are quired in theory that isn't so much of an issue anyway as they will be funded by Sony directly and their focus will be to produce great titles for the platform to increase the exclusive library base - much like say ND or GG.  Their sales targets will be based on one platform and in a sense other potential sales are irrelevant.

I guess if QD are aquired then the real potential losers are those gamers without a PS3 who might be interested in their titles, but that's always been a function of exclusives anyway.  Until I got a 360 I had to pass on Alan Wake, Reach, Lost Odyessey, etc.

As an aside, I do wonder though if sometimes developers who are bought do dream of having more freedom and selling more across multiple platforms?

But with QD, it's not as if they weren't fairly Sony focused anyway, and already making titles exclusive by choice like say Epic.

You seem to believe Sony exists in a vacuum.  Remember when they had to alter game release schedules because of delays last year and their facilities only being able to produce so many games at once?  It was centered around GT5.

In any event when a game is delayed it doesn't make sense to go to the enormous expense of rearranging their entire line-up.  I don't know for a moment why you believe this would be the case.

Ultimately we're both insinuating, but my insinuation is backed up by definitional accuracy and common sense.  Sony is a company, a company that owns a plaftorm.  By definition it's goals are different to an independent and it's flexibility is lessened.   Unless of course it chose to abandon it's platforms.

They will be free to choose a platform.

PS2, PS3, PSP, PSN, NGP and/or PS4.

They are only free to choose from a small subset of the available platforms, which is exactly the problem I've been describing all along.

wasnt there the same rumor one year ago?

Oh well. It's what happens when a company gets bought, but Sony is the best company to be bought by when you are looking to be creative.