There has been a lot of talk lately about the death of third party exclusives. As you are probably aware, Devil May Cry has caused the biggest commotion. With a 12,000 name petition, it's obvious that Sony fans are loyal, albeit somewhat ignorant to the actual truth. EGM ran an article about this very topic and it pointed to the one reason for cross console games that we all knew was coming: MONEY. Now here's the strange part, no one seems to have noticed that three of the biggest games of the past two years are third party exclusives (two of them are even Capcom games). For those of you scratching your heads, I'm talking about Lost Planet, Dead Rising, and Bioshock. It makes very little sense to me that these games are completely ignored by both the game magazines and the gaming community itself. There is a rumor floating around that Microsoft handed a large amount of cash to Take Two in order to keep Bioshock 360 exclusive (no shock there). So what is the deal with the two Capcom games. I myself would love to play Lost Planet or Dead Rising on my PS3 even now that they're a year old. Capcom ported Onimusha to the Xbox after it had been on the PS2 for a year. The same goes for Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, Capcom Vs. Snk 2, the Mega Man Collection, and so on. Capcom has even said that their reason for making Devil May Cry cross platform was to get the game to as many people as possible So why are they producing exclusive games for the 360. Again, its about money... mostly.

Another rumor is out that says Microsoft handed Capcom a lump sum to keep the sequels to the two games I just mentioned exclusive. Capcom, like any other business, is just that; a business. When a company like Microsoft offers an amount close to the projected return a game might receive on another platform in order to keep a title exclusive, it's hard to say no. The other problem is that many companies find it too difficult to develop games for the PS3 (mostly due to the 512 megs of ram and the cell processor).This is why Madden 08 has a 30 fps framerate on PS3 and a 60 fps rate on 360. I do have to give EA credit though. They are one of the only companies that has stuck to cross platforming from the beginning. I'm not a fan, but I doubt EA will ever release a big title as an exclusive. And even though they delayed the Orange Box for PS3 two months past the 360 version's release, at least you know that they're actually taking the time to do it right after the Madden fiasco. Anyway, as long as Microsoft is willing to throw its money around, you better believe that we'll be seeing several 360 exclusives in the coming years.