"Historically, third parties would give us great support and lead developed on our platform, but they would say "In Europe, we have to still support the PS3" but now that that has switched, I think you'll see us get some benefits from that."

Sounds familiar, huh? 

"History has shown us that the first company to reach ten million in console sales wins the generation battle. We are uniquely positioned to set a new benchmark for the industry."

OMG xbox 360 really the best console in this gen!!

We need more.......

Looks like Aaron now has something new to say everyday...

Not decline, just not leading.

This is really likely, MS has plenty of $$$, Sony is struggling at the moment. PS3 is not the continuation of the PS2. Third party developers know that and they are now giving more support to  MS who have the money to burn and further extend their sales leads over Sony this generation.

Third parties flock to MS due to the fact that third party titles sell a lot more on Xbox 360 and are easier to program and develop for on XBox 360 than PS3. The costs of developing games on XBox 360 are cheaper than developing on PS3.

I thought big devs like EA have said that the PS3 is now their lead platform?


@ topic: I think most devs will wait until they see a price drop from Sony.  If that doesn't create any momentum, they'll probably switch more towards the 360.  As for now, I don't think they'll change much.  And even if they did go for "geared towards 360", it's not going to help this year or probably the year after this, since production on those games has already started.

Well, with the current sales of hardware and software on the PS3 I'm not too sure it would be all that expensive ... Suppose Microsoft started approaching publishers and said they were planning a $400,000,000 Million year-long marketing campaing to profile third party exclusives, and they wanted 10 exclusive games each quarter to highlight (with a $100,000,000 Million worth in marketing in that quarter). I'm pretty sure that a lot of publishers would be fighting for that opportunity.

Certainly, Microsoft wouldn't secure a Metal Gear Solid or a Grand Theft Auto with an approach like that but Sony would start to find itself fighting to keep the majority of games which don't pass 500,000 or 750,000 on the system.

I think we can expect a number of 3rd party exclusives and this little salvo is just a hint of that. That said a lot is riding on Sony right now and MS are really making any board decisions about what divisions are gonna take a beating tough.

Lets face it Microsoft may be announcing lay offs but they are not cash strapped and they are playing hardball which I think is a deliberate attempt at forcing Sony's decision making processes in their favour.

Buying a "crapload" of 3rd-P exclusives is good and all but in the end it really depends on what games make up that "crapload". Buying Way of the Samurai 4 exclusivity won't change anyone's mind but buying FFxiv will...but can they shell enough cash?

Also, Sony's hometurf (Japan) would always guarantee that M$ never gets the "global domination" over ps3 that they're talking about. Games that sell significantly in Japan would continue to release on ps3 except M$ wishes to pay for every last one of them.

It's funny how everyone talks of this unlimited M$ funding and how they can buy everything, we'll see. It really has to get ridiculous at some point because I don't even think the ps3 would ever stop selling this gen if M$ bought every last 3rd party game. Some people only play GT5 and some can't do without their God of War. Throw Uncharted, Killzone 2, Heavy Rain, etc in there and there's more to play.

The West

PS3 - 16.85
360 - 26.65

I guess as far as they are concerned a 10 million lead in the west is significant.

I too believe Microsoft has bought up A LOT of third party exclusives. Bioshock 2 to be one of them.