It's not that everything Microsoft does is bad, if I believed that I wouldn't have an Xbox 360. My greatest wish for Microsoft is to represent Americans and themselves as a legit gaming company and focus on quality gaming and profit off of that rather than doing as little as possible. A shooter is fine and smart knowing your audience. In my opinion though, it only cements the stereotype. Microsofts marketing is more stellar than their first party offerings.

Um...Arcade is composed of lower budget games just like PSN. The casual market on PC, tablet and Mac products are still gouging into the casual titles sales on consoles.  Retail games are still the main games and it is an illusion that those games are equal. Microsoft doesn't have many of those. Of course Microsoft is going to publish what has the least risk, which is why the best games they have are third party outside of Halo and Forza. 

Ofcoure xbox arcade is composed of casual / low budget gameslike the psn, yes. But also they are pushing the boundries of what you get for 15 bux.

And too say the best xbox games are third party is a matter of opinion, dont pass that on like its fact. My favorite games are Halo, Gears, Forza (not fable) and a bunch of others that are first party. MS takes many risks, just look at the entire Kinect Line up. Hundreds of thousands of people bought SW kinect (i was not one of them) and alot of people enjoyed. Those are not the types of people to head to an internet messege board and complain about the game or even go read a review on it.

Im not sold on Kinect by a long shot but i have to give them credit for trying to be innovative, Star wars kinect, Stell Battalion, Fable the journey, all games that are simply not possible without kinect. Whether they deliver is another story. atlast they took the risk.

I like what MS is doing with their portfolio. They want a Diverse Library of games. If xbox owners can get an experience witha multiplatform game, then why would MS go into development in a game of the same calibur and just keep it xbox exclusive. Doesnt make sense. there are so few original Ideas no a days, id rather them take there time and find a truly innovative product. (example being how MS was to purchase crytek and decided not too due to the fact they were working on crysis 2. Theydidnt need another sci fi shooter, they had halo)

Yeah finally a Shooter for the 360...oh wait

Gears isn't first party

I'd say Nintendo and the 360 have the highest quality JRPG's under their belt exclusively from third parties in the Last Story, Xenoblade and Lost Odyssey. Wouldn't you say so as well? Isn't Gears a high quality game or even Alan Wake for that matter? Mass Effect or even Dead rising? You don't think those games are even on the top ten of Microsofts exclusives list? Ok fine...Left 4 dead, Witcher 2. Imo third party made exclusives are not only the lifeblood of the 360 but were also the lifeblood of the original Xbox thanks to Bioware. Less risk for Microsoft by publishing or buying games hot companies they don't own. Halo itself was in production before Microsoft saw it and took it from Apple. Bungie wanted Apple to buy them, but they didn't so Microsoft scooped them up immediately after Steve Jobs said no.

My mistake. The Franchise is owned by MS.

no its not. it is published by microsoft

First party means Microsoft owns the intellectual property to the games and its made internally. They don't own any rights to the game except that they paid for the titles development to ensure its exclusivity to the console.