Your thoughts?

A few things:

- Does Sony actually own Insomniac? I'm too lazy to look it up right now. I know they do publish their titles.

- After UT3 tanked, Epic is probably chomping at the bit to get GeoW2 released because it's an automatic cash cow. It's also their best franchise at the moment and was always planned as a trilogy.

- I don't consider H3 to be a cash-in... Bungie went out of their way to add new features that had never been seen on consoles before that point (Forge, Theatre). That doesn't sound like a cash-in to me though it's obvious they're tired of Halo and want to move on to another franchise. Good for them.

i do think compaines are leaned on to do sequeals to games, they after all made money on the first one so why not the second

 1. Insomniac isnt own by Sony.

2. UT3 didnt tank.

@disolitude - your information gathering is seriously lacking. You are losing a ton of credibility with each post.

Oh god! They're being FORCED to do sequels! God, make it stop! I don't like these characters I made! they're ugly and have no personality! They only remind me of what a horrible game designer I am! Putting a 2 after the name of my game only acts to double the dispair my soul feels after creating this gaaaaammme!

Seriously, if you've got a good idea from the start, you're not being FORCED to make a sequel, because you've got resources already there from the previous game, and a stroy to build on instead of having to work from the ground up.

Game companies in general seem to be realizing that Nintendo had the right idea 20 years ago. By sticking with your characters and the world you've created, it will become more and more recognized by the public. Mario is ICONIC now. You think he would have been iconic if he had only been in Mario Bros? and then they decided they needed more freedom?
They've stuck him in any game they felt it was reasonable to do so, and even in a few it wasn't. As a result, he has recognition, people playing the game feel a sense of familiarity and comfort in playing it, the game is easier to enjoy and thus is seen as more fun. On top of that, because those games are more fun, and games that have mario in it have had a history of being fun, people associate mario with good games and are more likely to look for games with mario in it. It's a positive cycle.

You should work for EA :)

@rocketpig

Insomniac is a second party developer, like Naughty Dog. Privately owned but in a deal with Sony exclusively.

I haven't played either, but I thought that Resistance and GoW were set up from the start as "part 1"s of a series?

 WRONG AGAIN

R&C could easily be on the 360 if Insomniac wanted to. They like Sony and choose to make games for them. Same with Naughty Dog.

UT3 did Tank, get over PC fanboys.

Insomniac and Naughty Dog are also contractually obligated to Sony whether owned or not. They're still second party developers. Trust me, no company that could help it would stick with the PS3 in the early days of this generation. As for third party developers like Square-Enix and Konami, guess who owns a large portion of those companies stocks? You guessed it, Sony.

DMC4 looks like another half hearted effort and even RE5 looks like an excuse just to continue on the series without the genius that gave us RE4 in their company anymore. And Street Fighter 4 is just a veiled attempt to create new interest in a series with a new number instead of just a title suffix, a series that has been beaten to death.

GTA4 is another push by Rockstar which illustrates they're not as multi-talented a company as many hardcores would like to think.

I'm too tired to think of any other examples but new fresh genres are the winners this generation, and while blind sheep will flock to tired and true franchises like Halo 3, Gran Turismo 5, Final Fantasy XIII and GTA4 none of them show much promise of living up to their once celebrated grandeur.