I would expect only planned AAA flagship titles to continue to be top price, and available. Development on risky new genres will be contained to marketplace, and for a low budget price. If companies can pick up older titles and make them $30 or less (Sonic Genesis collection or the Raiden package) expect that.

One can expect to see higher end marketplace titles also, where the price is still less than $20 but over $10. And expect a lot of cancellations of games like Faith and a .45.

I unlike other posters I think the name of the game will be speed, efficiency, security, and cost. The goal will be quick development cycles with the bare minimum of cost. This offers the quicker return in investment. It is a simple enough strategy build the game for the best platform as quickly, and as efficiently as possible. Which keeps the upfront costs down. This allows for a faster return on investment, and alleviates the dangers of liquidity in a soft borrowing market.

This basically consolidates risks, and makes them far more manageable. This also gives developers the potential of test marketing. Rather then casting a wide net. The first platform lets them measure the success of a product. Then if it is sufficiently successful they have two options. They can petition the manufacturer to buy exclusivity, or they can do quick and dirty ports in less then six months. The result is they take fewer risks. In this economy that is good business. Building for multiple platforms can be more profitable, but it can also be a financial abyss if the product fails. Better to build one game that does not pan out. Then to build six and have none of them pan out. Do that enough, and you are out of business.

Big companies can afford to take the big risk by multitasking development. Smaller companies do not have the necessary reserves. So while large companies may set their nets wide as they usually do anyway. Smaller companies are prone to become more concise, and make strategic choices.

I expect the platforms that will be hardest hit in this order PSP, PS3, DS, Wii, 360. Which basically follows the line of risk. Before anyone says why is the DS there. Well the answer is very simple competition and financial backing. That is a very competitive library, and shovel ware which is often venture capitol will see a thinning. You know as that group of investors is shy of spending money especially on butterfly farming. Ironically that idea would have flown a couple years ago. With no problem, but now investors are far more discerning. The Wii should do better for being a short term trial market. The 360 obviously has a rabid user base to fall back on.

What should be interesting is the fact that this is a buyers market, and both Microsoft and Sony do enjoy buying. With a tight market they can secure exclusives for much less, as developers try to mitigate risks. So as strange as it may sound we may see more exclusives if the players decide to put their weight towards securing titles.

I agree that 360 will remain largely unaffected. Generally the big-name projects that go there are fairly low risk, and the kind of studios that develop the bulk of 360's libraries will largely be unaffected. Studios that did PS3 ports (like whoever did Fallout 3 PS3 or Orange Box PS3) will likely be one of the first groups to go, but that won't spell doom for PS3 overall, it will simply limit those games that aren't being developed primarily as multiplatform titles (clearly in Fallout 3 and Orange Box's case, the intent was purely PC/360, with PS3 as an afterthought in either case). Multiplatform development won't falter, but those games that are strictly PS3 ports will probably suffer

Wii will largely benefit, as it is a lower-risk platform, but some of the games promising lower returns will get axed (stuff like Winter, but Winter's fate was totally unrelated to the current financial thing, just an example), DS will benefit for similar reasons. PSP will lose more western support (if that were possible), but remain steady in Japan.

They wont really be hit that badly. I would assume many of the jobs that EA are cutting are for studios like the ones that made facebreaker. And of course as you go through the generation, the developers become more efficient at developing games, so you need less people anyway

Making PS360 games 360 only is just plain stupid, in most cases the PS3 will sell 2/3 or more of the Xbox one, and I doubt that does not justify the extra cost, especially as Ubi seemed to report that the PS3 was making them the most money (I don't think it was quite true) but it is certainly true that the PS3 is making 3rd parties plenty of money