The reason for the curiosity should be obvious to those following Sony Computer Entertainment. Sony’s strategy with exclusives has been both successful and economical in the long run. Instead of securing exclusives through third-party deals that can be expensive, Sony has decided to acquire the developers directly. It’s a plan that if followed correctly will leave Sony sitting in the same position as Nintendo. With a strong in-house development team, you can hit some bumps along the way but survive with solid software. Nintendo proved this with both the N64 and Gamecube. Both of those consoles lacked a strong library of third-party titles but stayed afloat thanks to strong first-party games. Sony is right to follow suit.

With major acquisitions to build a strong stable of developers like Guerilla Games, Evolution Studios and more recently Media Molecule, Sony will soon be just as solid as Nintendo in terms of first-party games. So what does this all have to do with Insomniac and the deal they made with Electronic Arts? The deal is only for one game, which in and of itself is a little strange. Deals between two major companies are rarely (seriously almost never) made for such a short term. Insomniac is close to Sony and always has been since being founded in 1994. With Insomniac handling some of Sony’s biggest hit franchises, they are likely high on the list of prospective purchases. So could this play a part in the sudden news of going multi-platform for one game?

It’s almost guaranteed that Insomniac was aware that Sony was in the market and looking closely at them. Since they’re a privately held company though, they’re able to make moves quickly without going through the hoops of multiple board approvals and more that public companies have to do. By signing a third-party deal and keeping it short, they’ve increased the value of their company significantly and made it clear they’ll be available for a clean purchase after the release of that one title. Running on this assumption, we can basically guess two things about the EA game. The game will be a quality title on all the platforms it releases on because Insomniac wants to increase their value. And we know it will be fast as to get back to what they know.

Based on the history of Insomniac with Sony, the extremely short deal which is very uncommon between a large developer and large third-party publisher these days (we’re not talking little nobodies making a movie license here) it’s very likely that Insomniac will be owned by Sony by Christmas 2011. Recently Andrew House, the president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe was interviewed and regarding the acquisition of developers said; "Our acquisition of Media Molecule clearly shows our commitment to our first party studios, to ensure that we continue to offer by far the most compelling, innovative exclusive games. Over the years we have done this with developers such as Guerilla Games and Evolution Studios and now with Media Molecule. I think it is clear that we are prepared to invest where there is long-term creative benefit to our platform and our consumers.” So just watch. Insomniac won’t be a multi-platform developer for long.