Why third party developers are attracted to Xbox 360 like nails to a magnet

I have been researching into why developers seem to love the Xbox 360, and why former-exclusive PC and PS3 games have been getting ported over to the Xbox 360 quite a bit (being a hermit, I don't want some of my PC games to be multiplat with 360, espeically Dragon Age and Crysis Warhead). However, I will state my thoughts why developers love the Xbox 360, with Square Enix joining in:

1) Easier to produce games on Xbox 360 than PS3 due to more familiar hardware and DirectX technology. If you know how to make a PC game, you know how to make a 360 game. Think of the 360 as a cheap PC in terms of hardware. Meanwhile PS3 is completely different beast altogether with unique hardware.

2) Third party developers do not have to pay for online. With Xbox Live, the consumer pays for online via XBL fees. This leaves the third party dev with extra cash in their wallets when compared to PC and PS3 online gaming (unless its MMORPG like WoW). This may sound like a bad thing for XBL subscribers, but remember that your XBL fees may be the reason why the developer decided to release their game on your console in the first place. Take pride in your XBL fees, the devs are loving you for it, and will continue to release their games for you :)

3) More profit per game sale. PS3 and 360 games both cost $60 USD, but PS3 licensing could be more expensive because Blu-ray discs are more expensive than DVDs. If Sony charges $1 more than Microsoft for each game copy a developer sells on their console, then the developer loses $1 million if they sold 1 million copies on the PS3 instead of 360. however, this just my theory, I cannot verify this completely, but its possible.

Because the 360 is so damn cute of course.

But it's because it's easier to develop for, so less money and less time ftw I guess.

And the 360 has a 20 million userbase(or close to it) that buys alot of software, and the system does very well in the worlds biggest market.

This gen between Sony and Microsoft will be about 1st/2nd party games. 3rd party will no longer have a say in who wins. Rockstar, Square, Activision, EA, etc are all there just to profit of these 2 consoles. No pub is picking 1 horse this gen IMO.jg4xchamp

Yup, which is why I think this gen is the most unpredictable.

There are more third party exclusives for the Wii.Tony-Harrison

Yeah, but look how much shovelware there is. Quality over quantity here. No offense to the Wii, but I will wait until 3rd party Wii games get better.

[QUOTE="Tony-Harrison"]There are more third party exclusives for the Wii.PandaBear86

Yeah, but look how much shovelware there is. Quality over quantity here. No offense to the Wii, but I will wait until 3rd party Wii games get better.

There are a lot of 7.0 - 8.5 third party games on the Wii that don't get a lot of mention. I bought Mercury meltdown revolution for the Wii for my Dad and I actually play it a lot. It got 8.5 here I think. Zack & Wiki is excellent, better than No More Heroes in my opinion. Okami isn't exclusive but it's great. There's lots of stuff really.