Yes SONY should market it as

PS3 VERSION HAS FREE ONLINE PLAY!!

I think that line(The ONLY version with 100% free online play) in the sony's ad would upset microsoft severly. if sony puts it in the ad that is.

 That is about right about the "loan".  I doubt MS will make the 50 mil back but will deal a blow to PS3 sales cause of it.

That's what I would do if I was Sony.. 

Its the PS3's biggest advantage beside the Blu Ray player 

The online play issue is overrated. With XBOX Live you pay for a service which is very relible. With PSN it's free but I who have a fast internet connection have had numorous issues with PSN when trying to play games online. I think the online is a moot point. XBOX Live is $7.99 a month if you pay monthly and about $4.20 a month if you buy a yearly suscription. I don't think gamers are that cheap that they won't pay. Online is not an advantage for either system. Also, it's the GTA IV's single player not online play that will the deciding factor.

do you think that would matter to the people who just heard FREE online play in the ad?they will be running while screaming to the nearest video game store to get it.lol

 Beside PSN speed is good I ve never had any problems with it,,,it might be your firewall settings,,,cause after i adjusted my fire wall settings the speed doubled and never had any problems

people won't be buying gta and seeing as online as a huge factor as their purchase. they'e buying it because it's gta 4, a game that doesn't need to be played online. so using online as a selling point won't help steal customers in my opinion.

Grand Theft Auto on the 360 is a success already. Microsoft has already accumulated three propaganda coups. They took an exclusive away from Sony. They delivered another high end game to their console. Then they secured exclusive content for their console. This alone has sold more 360s over the last year to fans of the series. Beyond that Sony actually delivered another coup for Microsoft when they abandoned backwards compatibility. Making the console the uncontested Grand Theft Auto console.

I really think this brand recognition causality is a myth. Something conceived as much in blind faith as in desperate hope. The series hasn't been console exclusive to Sony for quite some time, and even then it wasn't exclusive to the console in the first place. You can play all versions of the game on the PC. For those that argue against the 360 on these grounds for games on that console. Let us not have selective memory in this shall we.

Once you remove this particular myth you actually have real numbers to work with. First you have the install base. Second you have the high end attach rate. Third you have software based console potential. Forth you have price differential. I would hope some people compare the sales data for the consoles and make rational judgments.

First the 360 has the larger install base, and more to the point the larger dedicated install base. Nobody buys a 360 for the specific purpose of watching movies. Many PS3s have been sold merely to people that want to watch BluRay movies. Second Microsoft has the higher attach rates on high end games we see this week in and we see it week out. Great 360 titles have fantastic initial sales, and fantastic legs. Third the 360 has actually had breakout titles. We saw the boost that Halo 3 brought to the 360 last year. We saw it move a large number of consoles. The only comparable title was Everybody's golf in Japan for the PS3.

The 360 is probably going to move more consoles and more software. That is the mathematical progression. Finally Microsoft is going to advertise the hell out of this title so among consumers unless they live under a rock there will be no doubt. That said I am unsure why anyone thinks the opposite.

Just a factual correction.  Microsoft hasn't paid them yet so how can it be a loan?  When GTA was delayed there were a bunch of articles about how the money is in two installments of $25M...  Each when DLC ships...

The following article states that the payments had not been made when GTA IV got delayed...  Scroll down to the "Grand Theft Auto IV Delayed Until 2008" blurb... Final two paragraphs...

http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/techtracks/archives/games_entertainment/