You guys are arguing over the definition of Second Party for the longest while, and there seems to be 3 different variations of use.
1) Refers to a company that is
partially owned by one of the hardware manufacturers.
- In this instance, RARE would be considered a Nintendo second party because Nintendo owned 49% of RARE.
- Silicon Knight would be second party to Nintendo because Nintendo owns a minority stake in them. Yet, Silicon Knights had an exclusive publishing agreement with Microsoft for Too Human.
- SquareEnix would be second party to Sony, yet they've become totally multiplatform this generation, in fact they even have exclusive for Microsoft and Nintendo.
- EPIC, Crytek, and Insomniac would all be considered third party.
2) Refers to an independent company that develops exclusively for one of the hardware manufacturer in a publishing agreement specifically with that hardware manufacturer.
- In this instance, Insomniac would be a second party developer for Sony.
- Bungie was a second party developer for Microsoft for Halo ODST and Halo Reach.
3) Refers to an independent company that develops some exclusives for one of the hardware manufacturer, but simultaneously develops other titles on multiple platforms.
- In this instance, EPIC would be a Microsoft second party developer for Gears.
- Team Ninja was a Microsoft second party developer for Ninja Gaiden.
- Bioware was a Microsoft second party developer for Mass Effect.
As you can see, the debate is stupid, because it shows that in any and ALL meaning of second party, the developers never remain exclusive. Even while owning a developer and it technically being second part, the developer may release multiplatform games.
No dev remain exclusive forever so the second definition inevitably turns into the third one, in which case those game might be published exclusively by one of the hardware manufacturers (Ninja Gaiden 2, Mass Effect 2), but nothing guarantees the exclusivity of those games.
So at the end of the day, all you're arguing about the term "second party" is stupid and inconsequential anyway,