Maybe I misread the transcript but nowhere does it seem to mention Microsoft giving them 50 million for the episodic content (although I don't doubt they might have). What I do see though is talk of revenue being generated by the episodic content (25 million for each episode). Maybe I'm reading it wrong?  I read it as them expecting to make 25 million from each episodes' downloads?

Lets say at $10 per ep, they would need 2.5 million sales to do that. 

This being GTA id guess its possible. 

Take2 is in financial trouble and Microsoft is bailing them out with a $50 million advance payment for the exclusive episodic content. Take2 will not get any of the profits from the episodic content, Microsoft will get everything back in return for the $50 million advance payment.

I guess it also depends on HOW MUCH content we are talking about.

Legend11 is right, I think the OP got it wrong! The transcript says that Take2 plan to have $50 million in revenues from episodic content. It doesn't say that MS is footing this bill. I guess customers will have to pay for this extra content.

Going by Blue3's estimation of 2.5 million copies for $10 each - that would be 1.25 million copies for each of the 2 episodes. The episodes are announced to have 10 hours of gameplay each, so they might even sell for more than $10.

http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=&console=PS2&publisher=&sort=Others
Here are all the PS2 games, put in order of most sales in PAL territories to least. Grand Theft Auto occupies the 1st, 2nd, and 4th highest positions.

==> impressive ... so many "bad" games so high in the top (FIFA, NFS ...)

so finally, the GTA add-on content will be exclusive or not ?
I don't get the point about what was saying take2 ?

did M$ give take2 50M$ for this exclusivity ?

This does not make the PS3 version look so bad. Not at all. If you pay 50 for live + 20-30 for extras, the difference between Xbox360 and PS3 is far from $200. That is of course considering the view of a consumer that would get a new console for a game like this. I do not think that people would buy core versions of Xbox360 (I would not). So the real difference is like 130 to 50 (considering the Elite). Even so, the game library right now would favor the box.

There were so many bad games in the top because the PS2 was what the Wii is.  The casual gamer system.  Of course hardcore are mixed in there, but sports games, racing games, GTA games, that kind of stuff will sell very well.  Of course GTA really sells to both casual and hardcore, but it really is a casual game.