For those of you who were, like me, wondering why the downloadable episodes for GTA IV were 360 exclusives, we finally have an answer.

According to an article up on Texyt Microsoft is paying Take Two a whopping $25 million each for the two episodes.

To be absolutely honest, the information comes from Take-Two Interactive’s Second Quarter Fiscal 2007 Results Conference Call (registration req’d) and doesn’t specifically mention GTA IV. If you look at there upcoming releases however, you’ll find that the only planned episodic content is for GTA IV, which kind of cinches it.

The relevant quotes:

Evan Wilson, analyst:

And as it relates to the deferred revenue chunk associated with the… episodic content on Xbox 360, [I] can see that [unintelligible, assumed to be 25] million of that moved into short term deferred. Can you give us any sense of when that’s going to hit the P and L [profit and loss statement], and will we see 25 million at one time and then the second 25 million or will [there] be a slow bleed onto the P and L?

Lainie Goldstein, Take-Two CFO:

The first 25 is for the first episodic content… package that’s supposed to go out and that is in March of 08; and that’s why its moved into current, because its in the next 12 months. And the second 25 will be for the second episodic, [unintelligible] the episode, and that will be later in [the] fiscal year, fiscal 08.

The only thing that’s surprising here, given Microsoft’s habit of using it’s vast, Scrooge McDuck-like, liquid assets to acquire favourable marketplace conditions, is the princely sum. $25 million each. Now, I’m no financial wiz and my understandings of the economic underpinnings of this great hobby of ours is slipshod at best, but wouldn’t $50 million be approximately the amount it cost to make all of GTA IV? Couldn’t they have funded their own game for that kind of moolah?

Another thought occurs to me: How much money are they making on gold subscriptions? I bet they could have covered everyone’s subscriptions for the life of the console with $50 million dollars. Hell, they might even have been able to afford NOT ADVERTISING AT ME ON MY DAMN DASHBOARD!

And yes, I am still bitter about the advertising on my $500 console, thank you very kindly for asking.