This seems to represent a shift in MS' strategy towards the games software business. They seem to be cutting a lot of the fat and getting lean in terms of how much internal 1st/2nd party software they are producing. We've seen it with Sony too, maybe just not as dramatically, but their output is definitely less than the PS2/3 days. I'm sure dev costs have a lot to do with it, but it just doesn't seem like these big companies want the risks associated with owning and operating/funding as much big 1st party software anymore. The market is changing and people who are so used to 1st party games leading the way are having trouble adapting.