Unofficial: Tekken 6 for 360

[Paco]

It's still an exception to the "always" rule. Dreamcast had the largest userbase until some time after the PS2 came out, but it eventually lost it as the PS2 surged forward on a wave of extreme hype. Coming out early didn't do a thing for the Sega, except maybe prolong the enevitable.

Third parties will developer Xbxo360 games as long as it continue to lead, but that's not assured as a lot of things can change with the next year or two.

Okay, so perhaps the underlying factors warrant investigation...

During Dreamcast, and before the PS2, GC, Xbox:
Developers were still enjoying the 100 million+ fanbase of the Playstation, probably in awe that a console could achieve such mass appeal. PS2 seemed like a sensible business decision, no? Sega was a big risk after the Saturn fiasco, thus the wait and see approach many developers took. Nintendo was going to be late (again), and developers still had a bad taste in their mouths from Nintendo's strict quality standards of the N64 era. Microsoft was going to be a newcomer and a complete unknown (I don't think developers even knew about the Xbox when they started on PS2 projects; from what I read, the Xbox was quite an impulse decision on MS's part in 2000, the year PS2 launched). Sony was the safest bet.

This generation the playing field is completely different. It doesn't resemble the beginnings of the last generation at all. Microsoft has shown they are absolutely committed to staying in the game (they've already committed to a third Xbox), not to mention they are bankrolling many a developer as a publisher. MS has also proven their fanbase buy games, the previous Xbox and now the 360 having considerable software attach rates. Nintendo has proven they are still in the game, but obviously have seperated themselves from the traditional. Sony has just made a mess of themselves. They're late, overpriced, and their development tools are the most difficult (read, costly) of the three manufacturers. In a time of rising development costs, where a publisher needs to sell 500,000 copies just to break even (look up Namco) they can't afford to stay exclusive to a console. In the same time that the North American and European video game markets each outweigh the Japanese market by two, developers MUST think globally if they want to survive. The times have changed.

So yeah, Sega is an exception. Unfortunately for them, nothing was in their favor. However, they did it to themselves. They have a history of terrible decisions and they ran themselves in to the ground. Microsoft has no such history, and it's evident they aren't going anywhere. In other words, Microsoft is NOT Sega...not even a little bit. Microsoft would have to make a huge mistake at this point to turn off the support they've garnered. Sony would have to experience some good fortune (or drop the price) to turn things around. Nintendo can just keep heading in their direction as it seems to be working out quite well for them; seperating themselves from the game and all.