Xbox - Borrowing Nintendo's First-Party Model?

Thanks to Gamesindustry.biz for their interview with Xbox VP for game publishing, Ed Fries, in which Microsoft's attitude to first-party game development is discussed. It's revealed that "Microsoft is internally... developing between 35 and 40 Xbox titles", and Fries comments on taking creative risks: "In the beginning, you had people like Seamus [Blackley] and me talking about artistry in game design and so on, but some of that collides with the realities of the games industry." The piece suggests, that with "almost every key third party title available on all three consoles" it's up to Microsoft themselves "...to provide the [internal-developed game] innovation and take some of the creative risks which change a good console into a great one", and ventures that, although Xbox has more third-party support, the "parallels with Nintendo's model are startling."