Sometimes when talking about or announcing a game, they'll talk about future plans and sometimes DLC comes out. Apart from that, there really isn't any clue if they have something seperate planned for the DLC after the game comes out or if the DLC is seperate additions is beyond me.

The thing is , no one can really decide whats an "added bonus" or not. Some people were more invested in playing through DOA: Ultimate on xbox multiple times due to the numerous costumes to unlock. Its a given that if these "extra" costumes weren't there, these guys won't have played the game through as many times as they did. The "extra" costumes seem like they don't add to the game but to some they do. It is also obvious that the devs had the costumes in mind (and there were a whole lot of them) from the start and thus added them before the game's launch but if that game had released this gen, I'm pretty sure the costumes would have come in small batches to maximize the profit for the devs.

Its getting late into the 7th gen of consoles. Dev costs can only go one way now. That way is down but I highly doubt the unwarranted microtransactions will stop. In terms of free "content", its highly unlikely except it was user created or accompanied a patch to fix problems with the game.

Since The Last Remnant is a JRPG, I'm guessing the DLC is probably some side dungeon with special bosses to fight and side quests to complete. If you've been a fan of these kinds of games for a long time, you'll know that these kinds of things are available with the default package.

well...saying they will be adding additional content doesnt mean it was content that should have been in the game. its just saying they will be working on stuff for the game even after the game was done.

The examples given, being Fallout 3 and The Last Remnant, are games that have obviously been nearly completed already. They at this point are nearing completion, and play testing for bugs. Things can't be added in because that would cause a delay. You can't expect developers to rebalance and delay a game every single time a late idea gets thought up. Not every studio is a Blizzard, Sony or Nintendo where they can afford to delay games to add in as much as possible. Many studios can't afford to waste excess money on slipping release dates.

Even so should World of Warcraft have been delayed another 4 years so the two future expansions could be included in the box? Of course not.

There is only a certain amount of time in the development cycle, usually the earlier times, where what will be in the game is planned out. After that it's all a matter of making that dream a reality. Should Gears of War had slip it's big holiday 2006 release and lost out on millions by coming out January or February 07 just so a few multiplayer maps could be added?Should Gran Turismo 5 never come out since they could probably keep adding cars until the end of time? At what point do you stop and say at Polyphony Digital, "We're done"? Then with the game out, they can go back to work on making some new cars without as much pressure and put them on for a few bucks each on PSN for those willing to buy them. Should Rock Band, Guitar Hero and Sing Star never come out because more songs can always be added? At what point does it become no longer profitable when for $60 they're giving you 5-6 discs worth of thousands of songs to play?

Not all DLC costs money either. Off the top of my head, I know Dead Rising, Bioshock and Burnout Paradise all have free DLC for you to enjoy. IGN has a whole section now for DLC on Xbox 360, and it's well worth it to check out. Most of the DLC you do pay for is very reasonably priced.

Also many times DLC, while it's announced will happen earlier, is not actually considered what it will be until after the game goes gold.

This isn't supposed to say that developers/publishers don't abuse us by taking content out of the final game and then charge us for it through DLC. That happens. It's just one of many scenarios though. In most cases, I believe DLC is done under the right circumstances. Considering how poor most of the content is, I'd rather developers get their games out in a timely fashion and let me decide if I want to spend $5 for some shit armor or yawn inducing randomly generated dungeon of enemies.