Sony is now coming straight for the Xbox 360 fan base. It seems that Sony has lined up timed exclusives with two FPS that hit right at the sci-fi loving crowd. They have made a deal with the makers of Gears of War to have their next game, Unreal Tournament 3, a timed console exclusive for the PS3. Unreal Tournament has been a solid PC franchise and will launch on the PC along with the PS3 this fall. This will be a beautiful game with a clear emphasis on team multiplayer game play. The UT franchise is often used in professional game tournaments because of the complex multifaceted game types. The rumor has it the riff between Microsoft and Epic over user created content is the reason this game will not launch at the same time as the PS3. There also has been some issue with how Microsoft is charging for the download content that Epic is building for Gears. Since Microsoft is the publisher of the game they get to dictate the price of this content. Don't worry too much about the relationship though. Word has it there will be a trailer for the next Gears of War game an next month's E3.

The other game that Sony has secured is Free Radical's Haze, a FPS that takes place in the future where companies have their own armies. The game was the cover story in last month Edge magazine and the creators made direct reference to Halo. This game does look really good and would do very well on the 360 but it looks like this will be a timed exclusive for the PS3.

My take on this new is that this is a smart move for the developers because instead of going head to head against Halo 3 this fall on the 360 they now just got paid by Sony and can come out on the 360 next Spring when most 360 gamers will be ready to move beyond Halo 3. I would be very surprised if Sony did not pay to get these games as exclusives for this fall. Sony's fall line up is looking very weak in the FPS genera and they can hope that 360 owners will be interested in buying a PS3 and one of these games. I think this will back fire against Sony in the end because these games will be coming out on the PC at the same day as the PS3 and I think more console gamers that love FPS want to play Halo 3, not UT3 or Haze. I expect we will hear more about this at E3 next month.