Without a doubt, one of the biggest and most important components of a gaming system is its first-party titles. They're the titles that a company will be recognized for, and are often one of the main factors that go into choosing which system to buy. Nintendo has become legendary for the faces that they've created, and Microsoft changed the gaming landscape with Master Chief and the Halo franchise.

So to hear that Sony has spent more than the both of them combined on first party development is a bold statement - but that's exactly what Sony executive Jack Buser said at this year's CES panel.

According to IndustryGamers, when talking about consoles being used as entertainment hubs, Buser mentioned that, when the PS3 launched in 2006, it was the first to have a full Blu-ray player, as well as games in HD, and now supports CinemaNow, Hulu, Vudu, and Netflix. He went on to mention that Sony does still focus a lot on their exclusive titles (as indicated by the impending announcement of God of War 4) as well as stating that the publisher has spent more on their first-party names than Nintendo and Microsoft put together.

That said, besides mentioning the company's fifteen-year history of "investing in the PlayStation platform," he didn't give any concrete information to support this statement.

Buser then went on to talk about their third-party support, saying that they viewed them as their "partners." He then went on to make some rather thinly-veiled comments about the competition.

"We're not like some other game platforms that say 'Hey! Put your game out here on the App Store and maybe you'll be one of these 10 featured apps if we feel like it right now, and then the rest of you guys can all go out of business.' Or some other platform owners who are saying, 'Look, we're gonna make all the great games and if you guys can maybe make a great game on our platform, good luck but we're not going to help you much.' Or some other guys who say 'Hey, we hand-picked you and we're gonna shove a bunch of money in your pocket and the rest of you guys can all dial the 800 number and try to dial through to the front desk.'"

While the comments might sound like simply bashing the competition, Buser was no doubt making reference to the increasing number of game designers who have become frustrated with Microsoft and the limitations of Xbox Live - a sentiment that was blasted onto the Internet a little while back when Braid developer, Jonathan Blow, openly criticized XBLA. Buser continued by emphasizing that the third-party developers who work with Sony are extremely loyal to the brand - though, again, we're going to have to take his word for it.

He finished his talk on the subject by saying that Nintendo was one of the "big losers," due to the fact that they can't seem to get it through their heads to properly use the Internet to gain more players (or fix broken games) - a sentiment that has been echoed by many gamers as well as one could be resolved when the Big N's Nintendo Network debuts.

What do you think of Buser's statements?

Source: Industry Gamers