Okay, I guess we can all agree Titanfall is a significantly better game than Bloodborne.

I'm sure there will be no differing opinions on this forum? Great!

I promise you will find consistency in me at least but I'm not so sure about others though ...  

Microsoft acts like big corporations act.  When they needed these studios they funded them and promoted them but when they no longer needed them they killed them.

Maybe, it's certainly possible that MS has decided that it's easier to pay other devs to make games for them than to make games for themselves.

I'm not sure it's actually a good idea, but I guess we'll all find out.

It might come down to implementation, and to be fair to Microsoft, their use of third party seems to at least be the smart kind so far. Basically, Microsoft seems to be taking two approaches; for brand new IPs, they have the studios bring what interests them to give it either the thumbs up or thumbs down. And even when they're assigning new studios some of their older IPs, they still seem to be making sure talent from the original successes are attached to the project. Sunset Overdrive was an idea and IP that Insomniac brought to Microsoft, not vice versa. The man running the studios working on the new Crackdown game, David Jones, also directed the first (maybe the second as well, not sure,) title. The same goes for Killer Instinct, as one of the directors, Ken Lobb, also worked on the original titles. Platinum initially created the concept for Scalebound back in 2006, before getting the chance to work on it with Microsoft, etc, etc.

As long as Microsoft can maintain this attitude- giving third-party studios enough free reign to bring their ideas to the table for new properties, and ensuring old properties have a bit of a guiding hand from those most familiar with said properties- I think they could pull it off. I think I'd only start to get seriously concerned if they just start throwing their IPs at studios with little idea on the intricacies and ideas behind the property; sure, the 'brand new, largely unrelated thing' they make could be as enjoyable, even more enjoyable, than the original property. ....ooooor it could suck a lot, miss the point altogether, and just come across as an unrelated game wearing the skin of a popular IP.

Many of Microsoft exclusives like Ryse, Dead Rising, Sunset Overdrive and upcoming Recore and Scalebound are outsourced to third parties. I guess this is the Direction they're moving in.

Pretty crazy to think Xbox has only 3 really big first party
games now. Outside of halo, gears and forza, there's not much to offer on Xbox anymore :(

I remember the good old days when they had games like mech assault, rallisport challenge, project Gotham racing, crimson skies, xsn sports lineup, and many more.

Now it just feels like Microsoft is slowly leaving Xbox behind with nothing but third party to keep it afloat.
At least Sony and Nintendo are staying committed to consoles for the time being.

Lionhead is a huge loss and seems an unnecessary loss, but let's not act like we knew those other studios even existed

Don't cut the fat off if you don't have any meat to spare.

With the anemic first party line-up, Microsoft should be massaging every nook and cranny of those small studio's in an effort to create a decent midsize studio out of them. It would be difficult but the alternative is the harder alternative of creating a studio ex nihilo---even buying developers is a very risky effort.

Think of Nintendo, to pad the Wii U's library they've spend quite some resources on low-cost, low risk projects mostly by repurposing content from big projects (e.g. captain Toad). It's definitely helped create variety.

Meanwhile it's quite telling Redmond was willing to pour money these past years into creating Hololens and Kinect developers, yet after the supposed strategy shift there has been no resources dedicated on more traditional indie, midsize or AAA tier first party.

Its interesting, people always need to personify this kind of decisions to blame or excuse someone.

PS : I say that with curiosity, no personal offense, i always feel the need to justify myself on the net ;)