Well, at least for Microsoft, that is. According to a recent Take-Two Earnings Conference Call, the publisher will be receiving $25 million for each of two exclusive 360 episodes, the first of which is scheduled for March 2008.

Hopefully Microsoft and Take-Two will be able to give gamers an idea of what to expect from these episodes prior to the game’s launch in October. I wasn’t expecting much from these downloads, but at a cost to Microsoft, per episode, of around what it cost to develop Lost Planet in its entirety, they had better be significant.

Maybe they should put that on the box: $50 Million Exclusive Content Coming Soon!

Now the real question is, how much is Microsoft going to charge their customers for these episodes?

[Seeking Alpha via Game|Life]

This is pretty huge if it gets confirmed by Nintendo. Game Informer reported earlier that a whopping 90% of Nintendo’s Sales and Marketing employees will not be joining the company in their big move to New York and San Francisco.

Among these people are Perrin Kaplan, Vice President, Marking and Corporate Affairs; Senior Vice President, Marketing and Corporate Communications George Harrison; and Senior Director of Public Relations Beth Llewelyn.

Though when they’re leaving and to where they will flock next is anyone’s guess at the moment, the speculation game will likely be a widely played affair. Maybe they’re just taking the severance pay and avoiding the arduous move, but imagine if their paths lead to Sony or Microsoft.

Interesting food for thought, at least, and you can rest assured that we’ll keep you posted of any future developments on this newly-arisen bit of information!

E3 has shrunk. We already knew this, because the reports about it have been circulating for almost a year now, but the true scale of the shrinkage was made clear today. The official E3 arena has gone from the 5 gazillion square foot Los Angeles Convention Center to the 35,000 square foot Barker Hanger in Santa Monica. Not only that, but only about 2/3 of the space will be in use. Twelve of the exhibitors are going for large displays, each having a booth 20 feet on a side, and the additional 15 companies attending will have meeting rooms roughly 10 feet by 20. This is going to take some getting used to.

The dozen companies getting the “large” booths are the usual big names-

Microsoft

Nintendo

Sony

Sony Online Entertainment

EA

Capcom

Vivendi

Square Enix

Namco-Bandai

Konami

Sega

THQ

And in the 15 smaller meeting rooms are-

Activision

Akella

Atari

Atlus

Buena Vista

Crave

Eidos

id

Majesco

Midway

NCSoft

Playlogic

Take Two

Ubi Soft

Warner Bros.

E3 is a very different beast than it used to be, and the venue and its layout drive this home in a way all the press releases over the last several months haven’t. The flash and useless glamour is gone, and good riddance, but so is the sense of Epic that permeated the three days of the show. Oddly enough, now that there’s less to see, show hours have expanded to 9AM through 7PM. The extra hours and smaller venue should do nice things towards killing the exhaustion of covering the event, felt in the bone-weary feet of anyone who’s ever had to walk from the South to West halls of the LACC. Lets just hope there’s enough content to justify the time.

On the cusp of the ridiculously-awaited first trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV, Wired Magazine has published a tremendously focused and in-depth examination of the history of Rockstar Games and its parent company, Take-Two Interactive.

For those of you who don’t know, Take-Two is in the throes of corporate agony that will ultimately result in something bad for any fans of its games - the breakup and sale of some of its studios to some other publisher (Ubisoft? Electronic Arts?), bankruptcy, and/or the removal of the last few company officers who have been behind its best games.

What does all of this mean? A few things, really.

For fanboys of the GTA series like myself, it could mean that the newest installment may never see the light of day (unlikely but possible) or at least not have the same level of dedication and perfection that made Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, and San Andreas the masterpieces that they are. No matter what, most of the people responsible for those titles are long gone.

For sports fanatics (also like myself), it could mean that the only other player not named Electronic Arts in the sports game biz could cease to exist. Considering that the past year’s NBA 2K7, NHL 2K7, and MLB 2K7 were all simply fantastic, this would be an unmitigated disaster.

No matter what, the article should be required reading for anyone interested in the business side of gaming. It’s brilliant, so check it out.