Michael – I would have to say that having first party development does make them better. Because it guarantees that the games will be 100% exclusive to the system.

All microsoft is doing is either buying time, or DLC. And honestly DLC isnt going to sway me to buy one CONSOLE over the other.

That’s because for most of 2007 and 2008, the PS3 *did* have a shoddy selection of first-party titles compared to the 360. The 360 was completely trampling over it in that respect.

Now, in 2009, the PS3′s first party / exclusive line-up is trampling over the 360. Only a 360 fanboy could deny that. But that’s a moot point; Microsoft admitted *months* ago that they wanted to focus more on exclusive publishing deals than first party, in-house game development.

Of course, I just save myself the trouble of all this petty console war bollocks by owning both, so it’s no skin off my back.

What Konnick says *is* factually correct; the problem with his comments is the degrading assumption that having stronger first-party development somehow makes them better.

“We might be in teh THUrd place now, but just wait until [insert 'next big thing' here] comes out… It will shift units, and teh PS3 will win teh konsoul worz!!!”

Meanwhile, 360 owners have been playing their killer apps that have already shifted millions of units and are in a position to ask for a second helping…

E3 is in June, how many games do you all really think that Microsoft is going to release in the last 6 months of the year ?? When in 08 they only released like 4 top games in the entire year…

I love that vid. It’s awesome.

I agree, right now it’s hard to predict that one but at the moment I think they made that move too soon. 360 isn’t quite established enough yet. Same goes for Sony… It’s just too soon for either of them to sit back and let the 3rd parties do the work but it looks like that’s what MS are choosing to do.

Time will tell.

Perhaps they surmise that it’s cheaper and less risky to hire teams for individual projects than it is to have a bunch of people on the payroll who may or may not be coming up with the goods.

I guess only time will tell if that gamble pays off or not. Some of the teams they’ve sold off or disbanded have been top-notch talent, too. Quite why they’d ever let them go, I have no idea.

Given that Microsoft ARE a software developer it sticks out like a sore thumb that they don’t have any internal studios developing for their console. As such, they don’t have any other option than to sign cheques in order to secure exclusive content. Whatever the fanboys think, no developer is going to ignore two thirds of the market just because they think one system is popular. Not unless they are provided with incentive to do so.

The nature of game development, for the most part, can be pretty platform independent. When you’re programming gameplay, structure, doing art and so forth, you’re doing it to a piece of middleware (in laymans terms). Exclusivity deals can pop up very late in the day and are increasingly becoming ‘delay a multiplatform’ deal than genuine exclusivity anyway. Look at the mounting evidence in games like Tales of Vesperia for indications of this.

It’s got far less to do with how stretched a manufacturer’s bank balance may seem. That’s a laughably naive dumbing down of the circumstances. Things simply aren’t as black and white as that. There are financial incentives other than money-hats that might appeal to a developer or publisher. A strong global distribution network can mean more (and do more) than a fat cheque.

Also: I wonder how many headlines Pat’s going to milk out of his GDC interview. I’d also like to see the questions that prompted these statements as the way they’re written does a lot to imply they come out of the blue – which I’m not convinced of. Let’s have a little more transparency eh Pat?

It would be an ideal game field if all the major players chose to concentrate on their own goals instead of bad-mouthing their opponent’s tactics…

Not because I think that it’s going to be a good game, but the Halo is one of the top three or four killer apps in modern day gaming.

When I look at the way that big hitters of the likes of Killzone 2, LBP and Resistance dropped out of sales charts after a mere few weeks, then look at the fact that Halo 3 was the biggest ever grossing entertainment release when it came out, I think that it’s not such a bad prediction.

Don’t have strong studio for exclusive is stupid now.

They probably haven’t been in the position of needing to put in the highest bid for an exclusive for a long time, since it’s been a long time since they haven’t had the vast majority of console market share (Before this gen). So maybe they are still just assuming that 3rd party devs should be chasing the Playstation brand rather than the other way around.

I think he’s right in being confident about his first-party line-up because Sony do some great first-party stuff. But Microsoft’s first-party line-up is hardly lack-lustre. If Sony had bolstered their efforts with a bunch of third-party exclusives, perhaps they would’ve been in a better position now than they are.