I do not think it is stupid. We purchase televisions, mp3 players, personal computers, and DVD players without having content exclusive to any one of those entertainment devices. Aside from first-party releases, multiplatform games are the direction the industry is heading. 

No. It's Microsoft Game Studios. Only 360 and later PC. Never PS3/Wii.

Duh. PC port incoming in 18 months.

just like how they bought bungie right?

I assumed you would get the whole they just don't need to thing.  MS is still publishing the game and giving them money and that's all they need.  The game sells a crap load of copies on a single platform so they get money from that and MS publishes the game so they have that covered.

Sure, if MS wasn't throwing money at them they might go multiplatform but they just have no reason to right now.  Besides, they've already seen with Bioshock the kind of attention they would likely get.

but there is good for gamers, here this compitition forces console makers to cut prices sell at a loss, all in order to atract us. they try crazy new ips that will be just on their system that otherwise would not have come out (LBP).  if there was just one console that was on market it might cost more then is resonable and never lower it (look at the ps3 launch price), have major issues with hardware and decided to not fix it (xbox 360 for a year and a half), or just keep a high margin that is kept for the life of the console (the wii so far)

It pretty much comes down to that.  unreal 3 can almost for sure handle gears on both platforms, little tweaking will likely suffice.  epic probably should grow their staff just on principle so the resource part is bs.  Cliffy B probably doesn't have full control over where the game goes.

It pretty much comes down to money: does the ms give epic enough incentive to not expand their user base?

The same reason we have multiples of every electronic device. I do not see how Gears being multiplatform would detract from the quality. Would being able to watch The Godfather exclusively on a Toshiba DVD player make the movie better? I want the gaming industry to become like the other electronic industries. I am tired of having to purchase multiple pieces of hardware to play the games I desire. I purchase one DVD player to watch my movies, I purchase one television to watch my favorite shows, I purchase one mp3 player to listen to my music, and I want to be able to purchase one console to play my games. Fortunately for me, it appears as if that is the future of the industry.

MS will buy the IP before it goes Epic even thinks about going multiplat. Theres no way MS is letting this one go.

Epic won't make a PS3 version of the game because A: They get millions of dollars worth of advertisement spent on the game by Microsoft, along with game testers which they don't have to manage themselves B: They want to make the best game possible and they aren't the biggest developers out there in terms of manpower, C: They release a big game every two years whereas with a PS3 version it could take 3, this relates back to point B. D, they can make a better game by going exclusive to take advantage of the strengths of a particular console and E, exclusive shooters which Microsoft picks up on do extremely well in terms of sales.