It's kind of pity--which means I'm pissed off as a x360 gamer, there're no exclusive any more and more shooting games. GOW is good, so does Halo--but there are too many same genre here, let alone COD, BF3, MEs and others may even better than these exclusives. It usually takes a lot to make a console game as we know, but make a game like Mario Kart will be a lot cheaper than a Crysis. So why can't Microsoft just hire developer of swordigo or Waking Mars to make x360 exclusive game? Such as a x360 edition high polished, various customized, very deep and multiplay-supported Swordigo. These smart developers knows everything about how to make a groudbreaking game and they don't have enough money and support to polish it. MS has enough money to pay them, it's a tiny invest compared with a Gears of War game. MS could pay to make 10 good games through this way without needing blink one eye due to the low costing.
Those kind of games don't hit a wide enough kind of market on the xbox.. And besides they do have alot on xbox arcade... Same with all consoles... I doubt the devs would want to work for them anyways because they won't get a complete say in all aspects of the game... I was lucky growing with a snes was kinda of like what ur describing... A large variety of good games... That's kindof how it Is on IOS until freemium started... On xbox first person shooters and action games sell, with nintendo it was casual based now whatever, PS3 probly gives u the best selection at the moment plus PSN... Thing is indie devs want full credit and get what they deserve for their ideas....in today's world the bigger company would get some of the money they would have plus then it's not Thier idea anymore because Microsoft would have the rights to it....
I don't think Microsoft needs to pay or hire anyone to make games for their xbox live arcade games. From what I have heard it is a very healthy market for those developers which gets accepted by Microsoft to publish their games on live arcade.