It's cheaper than dropping the price of the console by 50 bucks (360 at $350 might sell another 1.5 million 360's but would cost them = $75) I think the lower price (than ps3) + GTA shared content + GTA exclusive content ($50 mil) will sell atleast 2 million systems (earning the company 50 million more than if it had dropped the price).

 But I'd assume not like Splinter Cell or any of the other games that actually looked worse on the PS3 :p

I still think it is unnecessary in the greater scheme of things (console sales) but MS will make money off people buying the add on stuff because Xbox Live users have bought massive amounts of much crappier stuff in the past (map packs, horse armor, gamerpics) and this is actually worth buying.

But here's the thing: they were already gonna make that money even if it was not 360 exclusive because the 360 version owners were gonna buy it. The only point of this seems to be to say 360 has something the PS3 doesn't.

In console sales, if a normal person was coming solely to buy the GTA playing console they would buy 360 anyway. Still think it's 50 million dollars unnecessarily spent.

50 million is nothing for Microsoft, the whole victory on this generation of consoles (which Microsoft really needs) is at stake. The 360 will probably not be victorious against the Wii, but its odds against the PS3 are getting better every day.

IMO, buying the exclusive content rights for GTAIV is a definate win-win for Microsoft.

#1 - They screw Sony out of having their biggest 3rd party game being either exclusive or definitive. GTA 3 through SA were definitive on the PS2. Thats why they sold about 10:1 versus the Xbox version. Face it, GTA being day-and date and having the added content exclusivity is bigger than MGS and FF13 combined (GTA:SA on PS2 sold more than FFXII and MGS3 combined)

#2 - They will make their money back. For all we know, MS is paying them $50m to publish the content themselves, therefore Microsoft will be the one to make the money back. If not, MS still charges for the servers for downloadable content (somewhere around 30% of the total fee goes to MS, give or take).

Sometimes you have to throw around lots of money. But really, is $50m alot of money considering they spent 10x that on Rare, and lost 100x that for video games thus far? GTAIV is a guarenteed 10 million copy seller, it's bigger than Halo. MS is going to stand to make tens of millions of dollars on the console license fee to Rockstar, and since GTA will probably sell around 10 to 12m units on the 360 alone, and will profit MS anywhere from $50m to $84m from the licensing fee alone, not including any sort of the DLC that GTAIV offers.

Again, GTAIV + Exclusive Content + Price Drop + Halo 3 + Lost Odyssey = ownage on a global scale (not against the Wii in Japan). Certainly Mr. Gates was right in saying that this Christmas would be the key Christmas for the console wars. And MS is betting billions on them winning, or atleast tying the Nintendo behemoth.

QFT. This, combined with a possible price drop announcement at E3 (or soon enough) might well be Microsoft's deathblow on the PS3. 

50 million alot of money. they should have use that money to purchase more exclusive games. people were already going to buy the 360 version because cheaper hardware $200 less

Deleted by moderator

 Well sure, they're being developed at the same time and the game was really ment for both consoles as opposed to making it on 360 and then trying to throw all that onto the PS3. 

Welcome troll. I would like to refer you to the Forum's rules:

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/rules.php