I thank them for keeping the PS3 alive. If the 360 hadn't existed the wii would absolutely have dominated this gen, and the PS3 would likely be dead in the water. Without the 360, the PS3 at a launch price of 600$ would seem over powered rather than the wii seeming underpowered. Multiplat games make HD gaming profitable, where as if the PS3 was the sole HD system launching a year or so after the 360, and had the ridiculously poor start, the install base for HD gaming would be so tiny that HD gaming simply couldn't have been a profitable proposition.

The wii would look like the logical next step in gaming, rather than a sidestep in gaming, and the PS3 would look like an extremely expensive, techno-swiss army knife.

Sony should thank Microsoft for keeping them alive this gen. Without the 360, the yin to the PS3s yang, the PS3 would've been dead in the water.

The best thing Microsoft has done in my opinion is.....

Well....i guess they have a good games library

I think the bets thing that they have done this gen is making achievements

I don't agree with one point, but yeah, even if MS bought exclusives how can be a bad thing??

Now more gamers can play good games on a cheaper console, yeah, horrible thing (For the Sony Fans), the only people really affected are the ones with a blinded love for the other console...

The only thing I could be grateful is for the support to the developers making a more easier way to develop games from the PC to the Console...

lol yeah sure. Because all of the people who now play Call of Duty4 or GTA on 360 would have switched to Carnival Games and Wii Sports instead of the PS3.

Kyros said: If the 360 hadn't existed the wii would absolutely have dominated this gen lol yeah sure. Because all of the people who now play Call of Duty4 or GTA on 360 would have switched to Carnival Games and Wii Sports instead of the PS3.

No, 3rd parties would've switched to wii because there was no money in making COD4 or GTA for an audience of 3 million. The PS3 would've seemed like a grossly overpowered machine, a feeling that would've been backed up by the 600 dollar price tag, compared to the wii's normal 250 dollar price tag. the 360 filled in the gap between the two with a 350-400 dollar machine. The wii became the outsider, even though it's the more realistic progression. The 600 dollar do everything machine would've been the wierd machine if the 360 hadn't filled in the gap between the two making a 600 dollar do everything machine seem logical and a 250 dollar slight progression like a step sideways. The 360 justified the PS3 to the consumer, and made HD gaming a profitable consideration by adding an audience that wouldn't have existed by the time the wii and PS3 launched.

 

 

So where would Hironobu Sakaguchi be without Microsoft? What would he be doing? Its in the best interest of anyone who likes his games that he be able to make them. Any Final Fantasy fan should definately thank Microsoft.

Microsofts tools benifit any console which does cross platform with the Xbox360 and they also release tools for the PC as well. At least half of the games this generation have used Microsoft tools at some point or another.

Good points people on the achievements and gamescore - they have been quite good elements they have brought as well.

I don't agree on dev tools too much. Sure, they're good as far as I know but so were the original Xbox's as well (at least I think it was so). It's definitely a good thing but nothing new after all.

As for what comes to JRPGs... They would simply be on PS3 I think. Or actually they could be on the X360 because of its marketshare. Anyway, I don't think it's MS to thank for - JRPGs would exist anyway. Mistwalker is probably the only JRPG thing they're to thank for. Well, I don't know too much about this so I'm not 100% sure.

Competition, however, is something I was sure to see here even before I started reading your post (after reading the title, that is) and I couldn't agree more. It's definitely good.

Kyros said: Bah bad reasons: Buying exclusives for their console is bad for gamers and has no advantages whatsoever. Its especially idiotic when these are japanese-targeted games for a console that doesn't exist in Japan. I thank them for 1) Bringing more PC developers to the consoles 2) Bringing PC features like VoiceChat, IM etc. to the consoles and forcing Sony to follow 3) Competing with Sony in the media feature set Competition is good thats true.

 

QFT.

Wow, Squilliam, were you making a joke? MS hasn't put support into JRPGs so much as bought a bunch of exclusives. Also, can you really say that they are driving prices down when they've had a single price drop in three years that amounted to a $50 savings? Plus, there's absolutely nothing to prove anything MS has done, bar money-hatting, has actually increased the number of games on the market. If they wouldn't have supported their system's development the games would almost certainly still exist, they just might not have made it to the 360.

Really, not even one of your arguments really holds water.