For Microsoft this is their biggest play in this generation’s war against Sony. They paid a lot of money ($50 million?) to get several episodes of exclusive content for the Xbox 360 version of the game which gives them a great competitive advantage over the Sony Playstation PS3. A competitive advantage that could see former loyal Sony customers switch to Microsoft.

Rumours on Surfer Girl and NeoGAF seem to indicate that Microsoft are going to spend heavily, similar amounts to what was invested with Halo 3, just to market this exclusive content, which would be a first for the industry. It makes sense. If they drop the 360 console price and release a Halo 3 bundle at the same time the results would be seismic.

The launch of GTA IV (April 29th!) will be the biggest event ever in the video game industry and will set up the HD consoles (and especially the Xbox 360) for a massive Q4 this year. With many homes also owning a Wii for casual gaming there will be a huge range of purchasing options. This is going to hurt a lot of other (non gaming) businesses which are going to lose a big pile of revenue, especially in an economic downturn. Q4 2008 will be when the world finally wakes up to how massive video gaming is going to become. Bigger than film and television put together.