usually, a big publisher will have pool of game engines that they own or have bought off (licensed) another company. this is why third-parties strive to survive. they either have to license a game engine (the old UT engine is $500,000 to license) or hopefully score a deal with a publisher and be able to use their inhouse engines. unless your Hcore and can create engines for openGL and directX your stuck with buying an engine (i left java out cause.....well its java).

xbox opened up the western market, and i mean, good for them. japan is still the leading consumer country for Vgames. xbox is like the 6th best selling console there. it doesnt have shit on the market. PS2 was still outputing sweet games cause they still have respectful developers with them (ie. any japanese developer). obviously microsoft has their revenue in other fields (software) so their introduction to the game industry is a tainted one. theyre buying all the developers (rare RIP) and throwing shit at them. on the flip side, theyre only effective the western market (the market we are apart of) so its the only experience we see. i too think xbox is a shit-stirrer, but i cant really blame them for the amount of shit they release. i think there are more poor releases on PC.

washing?? you mean like, not being covered in your own filth?? screw that, who needs sex anyway...*wipes translucent sticky glaze off computer screen*