With game developers finding more ways to slip in our wallets, how will Microsoft continue to keep it all to themselves?

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Xbox Live, Microsoft owns it, pays for it's servers, takes out the trash, you get the picture. It's also their house and they maintain complete control over the contents and features provided on Xbox live. No other services appear on Live without their approval and they keep Admin over those services.

Makes sense unless your a game developer who wants to make money on game consoles. Them's fightin words and the crowd is starting to throw things.

Take this years E3. Valve created Portal 2, it's playable on PC, 360 and PS3. Why would the owner of Valve, Gabe Newell, appear at E3 on the Sony Press Conference and say that Portal 2 is best played on the PS3? He just alienated BIG BUCKS.

Here's his quote. "As an industry, we’re going through a transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, and because of that, the needs of game players and game developers are evolving. More specifically, it’s not just about chips for rendering pixels, or calculating nav meshes. It’s about giving gamers a complete, social, connected experience. By adopting an open approach to these challenges, the PlayStation 3 is going to excel in this area."

He never says that Portal 2 PLAYS BETTER ON THE PS3, he's saying the PS3 has more opportunities for expanding Valve services. Here's what he actually said in gamer talk.

"Sony is allowing us to bring Steam on the PS3, while Microsoft is not, so Sony is now good, while Microsoft is bad". His issue is not with the hardware or the capabilities of the 360, but with Microsoft not letting them brand their products on Live.

Valve is not alone in this. Did you happen to see Final Fantasy XI on the dashboard. Well, you won't see it again. All other consoles will be getting Final Fantasy XIV but Xbox 360. Hiromichi Tanaka (director of Final Fantasy XIV) openly said that what blocked his game from appearing on the Xbox 360 is that "Microsoft ... wants to have a closed environment for Xbox Live", preventing any form of cross-platform communication and play.

Yoichi Wada (Square Enix' CEO) as well expressed his desire for an industry that allowed developers to "freely design their business models." None of which go along with Microsoft's business plan.

Electronic Arts is also throwing it's support at the PS3. Probably for the very same reasons.

Here's the facts. No other game in history makes more money than World of Warcraft. No other game comes close to having the fan base. Game developers see this as the future of gaming. You purchase a game from them and you KEEP GIVING THEM MONEY monthly to play that game.

Here's the next step. Computers games don't care if your on a Dell or an HP, you can game with all PC gamers. The future game developers want is to see you playing a multiplayer game with someone on a Wii while your on an Xbox 360. The subscription you pay is to your game, NOT your console.

Microsoft and more quietly the Wii are not going along with that. The big franchises do have more say on consoles already. How to stop it? They can't really.

IF they relent with just some of the most influential third parties, this might easily put them on a slippery slope, causing more and more developers to ask for concessions and resulting on a gradual but ultimately unstoppable loss of their "total control" over the Xbox live platform (not to mention a sizable loss of revenue, as more and more games would become available for online gameplay without the need of a gold membership). It does seem like a lose/lose situation for them.

They could set up more exclusive deals like Gears of War and increase their first party support, but in the long run those contracts expire they will go the way of Bungie and become multiplatform as well.

In my opinion breaking the borders of the consoles is inevitable. It's already started with PC gaming. As more and more gamers become PC literate, with cell phones as the great tutorial, subscription console gaming will start to fade.

3D, Motion Controllers, on line codes, Multi-platform games and subscription games, hold on....We're not in Kansas anymore.