Well, Spencer said already last year in a podcast that it's not about how many first party studios/games you have but about how many exclusive games you have. If you have 20 exclusives and all from first party or 20 exclusives of whom ten are first and ten third party doesn't change the amount of exclusives.

He even explained why it can be better in a case by case scenario and it makes sense that it can be also a problem when you have so many own studios who all need buildings to work in and employees to pay for.

The only real problem for Microsoft is that PS4 has so many more sales that it is obviously more expensive for Microsoft now as if Microsoft would have a 2:1 or even higher lead since Microsoft has to compensate for all the sales the third party developer would expect with a release on PS4 but in general it's not automatically bad to have less own studios or a weaker first party.

This is absolutely disgusting, for everyone involved. Seems like the only thing that is going to do Microsoft in this gen, is not make Xbox One better, just try to make PS4 look worse, buying "exclusives". This looks like "if you're not mine (the consumer) you won't be with anyone else" rather than "If you want the best, chose Xbox One".

Microsoft is basically screwing the people who chose PS4 instead of Xbox One, punishing the consumer. They better buy every 3rd party game because if they just buy games like Tomb Raider 2, what I'll do won't be buy a Xbox One, just don't buy that game.

And for Square Enix.....Bravo...., you're a doing everything possible so people can hate you even more. After considering the original Tomb Raider a failure because you said the game sold less than anticipated, you just make a deal of exclusivity with the company with less sales to counter that......excellent.

Is your body part that you use to sit down on a chair hurt by any chance? Because after this announcement I feel you might need to see a doctor. Health is life so you better consult with a doctor quick.

- Moderated, Carl

Nope.

Just good business by getting these developers on board and giving more chances to make the console unique on a market dominated by multiplatform games. MS 1st party is still expanding and still pushing out great games.

Absolutely. They are paying money to stiffle the distrubution of games that are going to be made anyway rather than investing in new ideas. When was the last time  Microsoft  released anything of note from their own first parties because they seemed to abandon support for the 360 a few years ago.

The counter thread! All go onboard!

Games are games regardless of where they come from. They need make sure their games are kept on Xbox though.

Microsoft is still trying to create a comparable roster of studios to make their 1st Party IPs. Where Nintendo and Sony have now had a decades to build up theirs, MS has only just come to this realization in the past 5 years. They have Black Tusk and probably many other studios yet to be disclosed.....but they are rookies. They cannot stand to the calibers of Nintendo's and Sony's 1st Party when they have guys like Naughty Dog.

So MS does what MS does best...........have a problem? Throw spurious amounts of money at it. Titanfall, Plants vs. Zombies:Garden Warfare, and now Rise of the Tomb Raider. MS is currently flailing in the water trying to stay afloat in this next gen marathon.

Its just funny because every moneyhat tactic MS pulled against the struggling PS3 last gen is now biting them in the butt. The amount of money they must have needed to get TR had to be crazy, especially knowing that the game has not been all that popular in years. I think this means MS has to pick their battles carefully. Its getting harder and harder for them to convince these 3rd parties to abandon Sony, and costing them more money just to get chicken scraps. This is exactly why this method of sustainability DOESN'T WORK!!!!! Sony knew this from the start. Bribing 3rd Parties with cash to only be on your platform turns into extortion after a while, to the point you cannot keep up. Once you have run that well dry they will build for the other platform and then years of hardwork is undone. Everyone here at this point KNOWS this is probably Timed Exclusive. Knowing that totally takes the wind out of it being exclusive at all, basically making the whole thing useless.

Nevertheless, this is still probably a good temp fix for MS. Square Enix on the other hand........continues to bury themselves in an even deeper hole. So they just killed more than 50% of potential sales at the beginning. What is going to happen when MS is no longer willing to pay? The next game will have to multiplat but will sell considerably less than it's potential because many will not want to start the next without playing the first(the entry they will assume never came to PS4 cuz it was late).

Fixed that for you.

Ok, this is a silly argument for a couple of reasons.  First of all, most of the games you just mentioned, except for titanfall and tomb raider, are all published by microsoft.  That means they had a lot of input on those games.   Also, games published by a console maker are considered first party.  Doesnt matter who the developer is.

second of all, who the freak cares if the developers are owned by the console maker?  What matters is what the library of games are on the consoles.  To that end, I would have no issues with console makers enlisting other studios to make games for them.  To try and twist that into a negative thing just seems incredibly silly to me.