Holy shit, that must be costing MS a pretty penny (if, it turns out to be FIFA).

If that really is Fifa 14 then wow. It sold 14.5m copies (up to may) so obviously it is going to appeal to a lot of people. It will be interesting to see if it is a full copy or a digital download.

Are people who think this is big news thinking MS bought it exclusively? If so, thats not the case. MS just bought the right to pack it in exclusively and it will still be availbke for the ps4

It might cost them a shitton of money.

Fifa is one of the key moneymakers in the whole game retail business. If you think the whole retail business will just stand by and celebrate the loss of a major income steam, you are quite naive. They WILL demand better deals for selling XBox skus, so MS WILL lose a lot more money on hardware than planned.

What i'm saying, is that Microsoft can afford this deal if it goes wrong, because they must have calculated how much FIFA 14 units would have sold if the game was sold at retail. If the deal cost as much as 500k units sold, that's not so much money to Microsoft.

Considering how loose the definition of "exclusive" is, I am not sure why Titanfall wouldn't be on the list to consider?  As a multiplayer only title, it makes sense to bundle it with the ONE.  This way the game can get a potentially larger player base from the getgo.

If adding value for consumers is a move of desperation I wish more companies were feeling desperate.

Isn't a launch game, not out until like March

Yes, and on PS2, and on PS3, and on 360, and on Wii, PSP, even Vita, 3ds, Android and iOS.

In the short term of course is good for us gamers, but, if by definition a company is desperate, it's because its business is at risk, so, in the long term could be very very bad for the gamer, in this case, a xbox fan.