While MS doesn't own all of those franchises, looking at Insomniacs decision to go with MS because they let them retain their IP, if it's good business for them and have a good relationship (same with Titanfall where MS actually is the reason why the game came out) then there is still a possibility of Xbox to keep those as exclusives. Capcom themselves also said I believe that if it weren't for MS there wouldn't have been a DR3.
Except the financial incentive needed to keep a non-owned IP exclusive is prohibitive. For one MS isn't the reason Titanfall exists. Anyone arguing that is either being blatantly dishonest or a moron.
Second, what if DR3 was some major revelation in the franchise and sold 5M copies? Do you really think Capcom wouldn't make DR4 themselves? Do you really think they wouldn't immediately go multiplatform in order to maximize profits? Hell, DR3 is already coming to PC.
Microsoft can't retain a non-owned IP as an exclusive in today's ecosystem. They're an also ran in Europe (a legitimately huge western game audience) and they've never even merited consideration in Japan. As a result being XB1 exclusive is ignoring 3/4ths of Europe and 4/4ths of Japan. That could get them by as long as the U.K. was a pro-Xbox aberration and they had a massive U.S. lead. Neither is true anymore. So unless MS is going to start writing $100M checks to keep individual titles exclusive (hint: they aren't) they need to generate legitimate 1st party exclusives themselves or fall further behind.
Also, when people say games like FH2 aren't exclusive to Xbox One, they should remember that the 360 version is being developed by another developer and that it has already been mentioned that it won't even be the same game at all, so in that respect, yes, it is exclusive.
Other games like LBP3 are coming to PS4 and PS3, I don't see anyone ever mentioning that, only when it comes to Xbox games. I guess TLOU won't sell at all as it is already available on PS3. Oh, but but but Sony says many PS4 owners are new to the PS ecosystem...
No one is propping LBP3 up as a PS4 system seller. It's there for people who are already loyal to the Sony brand and want it on the PS4, but it isn't a flagship title. And TLoU PS4 is coming out in the summer for a specific reason: to fill a void and drag non-PS3 owners into the PS4 ecosystem before the holidays hit. That works because TLoU is barely a year old, incredibly praised, and a very unique title. Meanwhile compare that to the Halo collection - most anyone interested in the franchise has already played most or all of those games over the decade it's been in existence.
Meanwhile Forza Horizon 2 is the big Xbox One first party title for this holiday and it's competition at selling next gen systems, Driveclub, is PS4 exclusive with visuals that make it pretty clear WHY it is PS4 exclusive.
Also, you can't say Sony has better first party games, but you can say that for you that is the case. The only exclusives I have on PS3 are Uncharted and God of War, as for me, there wasn't anything else worthwhile to play on a PS3, while I own almost every MS IPs on Xbox 360. That is the same reason why I own an Xbone, because for me, the first party/exclusives situation is much better than on PS4.
No, you can objectively say they have a better first party.
1. They make more games.
2. They sell more games in total.
3. They have a larger library of critically acclaimed games on metadata websites.
4. They haven't experience nearly the same talent loss MS has in the transition into this generation.
Point 4 is especially important. Consider Lionhead - a huge amount of the core talent that founded the studio and then was brought in for the original Fable have now moved on with Molyneux. Of course that is Molyneux's calling card. Pump out some good games with his core guys, get bought by a big publisher, stick around long enough to honor contracts and pad everyone's bank account, then bail to go indie, make a few quirky fun titles, then repeat the process again. The history of Lionhead is pretty much 1:1 that of Bullfrog. When is the last time you played a good Bullfrog game?
Or Rare. They went from a premier studio to a Kinect game farm. They closed all the FASA studios and have since leased out their IPs so can't even make games on them now.
And the crown jewel of first party failure, they let Bungie go thinking 343 would be a cheaper Halo farm studio and since haven't been able to capture the magic Bungie had (i.e. quality gameplay). The best calling card for Halo 4 was it's graphical leap forward, largely credited to Ms. Corinne Yu, who now works for Naughty Dog.
They haven't been committed to first party development since about 2006 and it REALLY shows.
People say Destiny is gonna sell PS4s, but then why would it if it's not exclusive and is also coming to last gen consoles? Why is it true for this game which is a 3rd party game and not even exclusive, but then not in the case of a game like Forza Horizon 2? Why can't FH2 sell Xbox Ones?
1. Destiny's ability to sell a next gen system is orders of magnitude greater than Forza Horizon 2 simply based on hype levels. The number of people saving up for an XB1 to get FH2 could probably be counted on two hands. The number of people saving up to get a next gen system to go with Destiny likely numbers in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions.
As for why it will sell PS4s preferentially, well....
1. Activision, Bungie, and Sony are actively working together to make that happen, just like MS and Activision used to do with Call of Duty. Activision is a whore though and see the shifting of the tides (not to mention Sony money hats) and have an agenda. Cross promoting a game with a platform has a multitude of examples where it disproportionately drives one format's sales. Sony is basically taking the strategy MS used on multiple titles last generation (CoD most notably) and taking it to the next extreme on the single biggest next gen release of the year in Destiny.
2. The PS4 is better hardware for the same or greater money. I mean, that's a pretty compelling reason for anyone who does more than a few minutes of internet research before picking a console. People care about that.
3. The XB1 is still battling some negative perception tied to it's DRM. They are now starting to face negative perception tied to the fact that Sony is kicking their ass globally.
4. Sony is effectively "priming the pump" for Destiny by releasing TLoU this summer and a Destiny specific console bundle this fall. They're deliberately running a full court press to get Xbox 360 owners on the fence to pick PS4. MS is still just trying to stem the bleeding while Sony is pounding nails into their bat to make sure the next blow finishes them off. Which it will if sales of Destiny are 3:1 this holiday (which would almost definitely be followed by 2:1 hardware sales in the U.S. alone over that same span).
Different strategies are in play now. Sony is looking to lock up the generation a year in, MS is just trying to get their balance back. 3rd parties see this and you can bet they'd all prefer to publish on a single platform instead of having to deal with two different hardware configurations, two different approval processes, two different printing streams, and two different packaging designs. Sure they like competition, but within a given generation it isn't as important and MS isn't looking real competitive right now as-is.
As to the OP itself - I really enjoy that last month when sales plummeted MS cited the announced removal of Kinect and associated price drop as the reason why it wasn't a big deal, only to use those same artificially low numbers to trumpet the rebound one month later. Fantastic spin doctoring there. Really well done. Not quite as good as Nintendo comparing Wii U LTD sales v. PS4 LTD sales despite the 1 year head start six months into the PS4's life but still, a valiant attempt.