Well a lot of people are talking about if it was smart for MS to purchase the DLC so I started looking at numbers and here is what I came up with.

-There is an estimated 6.72 million copies of GTAIV sold on the Xbox 360 and growing

-It is estimated that the two episodic contents was bought for $50 million dollars

-The first package is priced at $20 and assuming the second is priced the same amount that is a total of $40 worth of DLC.

-That means it would take 1,250,000 to buy both the packs or 2,500,000 to buy at least one of the packs

-Keep in mind the sales will probably boost a little due to the DLC and the game is still selling today

This move was either genius or stupid. Either way it was risky. What do you guys think?

Hasn't it been discussed over and over that these games were not bought?

it was worth it. There were some customers that picked the Xbox360 version over the PS3 version because of that. And they showed that former PlayStation related franchises are on their way to the Xbox360 + extra content.

Even if they won't get any revenue at all, the marketing aspect was pretty big. Let's say they will receive 20Mil with that. So they spend 30 million to show the world that the Xbox360 gets a lot of former PS-only-games.

Considering the $50m was a loan, it's very possible they've already been paid it back.
Not to mention the licensing fee for each copy of GTA4 sold on the 360 that Microsoft have gained
Plus the console sales they have got from people buying a 360 for GTA4
Plus the profit from games new owners have bought after getting a 360 for GTA4.

Even if MS did flat out pay for half the development costs of GTA4, they would have already made their money back and now will be pure profit.

MS paid take-two a $50M advance on DLC royalties. Kind of like how record companies pay an advance before an album releases.

They are making at least $20 I know that!

they wont make that back at all, it was purely for ppl to buy 360 version and hope to sell systems.

Microsoft is going to make 50 million less than if they didnt pay the 50 million. The 50 million was intended to offset potential sales on the PS3 plus a little extra. The gamble MS took was increased system sales at Sony's expense.

Don't know how many consoles you think it moved..I don't think it's nearly how many you think.

Well it's impossible to quantify, but the sales figures prove that obtaining the title for the 360 certainly raised the profile of the console and would have stopped many people from getting a PS3 had it been exclusive. Maybe it wasn't a massive console seller on the release date of GTA4, but many people would have made their decision to get one based on the release of GTA4, to deny that is foolish.