RancidLunchmeat
Veteran
I hear all this stuff that securing a franchise exclusive will be bad for publishers & it will upset fanboys, etc, but I've yet to hear what other alternative Microsoft has. It needs titles that the other platforms don't have. And since they supposedly don't have the depth of first party studios that the other platform has, their only alternative is to pay for 3rd party exclusives. Time is critical & paying for exclusives let them get around that in the short term. Long term they are better off doing it themselves. No doubt about that.
Tommy McClain
The problem is that new exclusive franchises don't move consoles, so they need to purchase established (yet not worn out) franchises and make them exclusive - or at least timed exclusives, and I'll bet that is actually cheaper for MS and as Dave said, beneficial to any 3rd party that either needs immediate capital or a boost to their balance sheet.