Rockstar games spokesperson Hosi Simon landed one of the most serious bitch slaps yet in the now bitter console wars. He was trying to play it middle of the road and not favor either Sony or Microsoft, saying things like "We make great games for people to enjoy on whichever system they want", and "They're identical games", but he slipped up when asked about the special episodes commissioned specifically by Microsoft when he stated "But I guess if you want the complete experience with the episodes, then yeah, you should buy the 360, I suppose."

This single quote may have a serious impact on the decision of many players as to which system to purchase. Grand Theft Auto IV is potentially the single biggest and most influential game in both systems future, with legions of fanatical fans around the globe dying to get their hands on it. No one wants to play a second rate version of the game if there's something better available, and many people have yet to commit to buying a specific next generation console. Any GTA fan enticed into purchasing a console when the game is acually released will now be much more likely to settle on the 360 as a result of this quote.

You have to wonder if this quote was part of Microsofts plan all along. The company payed an extra $50,000,000 for Rockstar to produce two exclusive episodes for their system. It would be rather easy for them to have paid some extra cash on the side for this effective quote. They also could have simply paid off the interviewer to direct the questions specifically toward the extra episodes until they got the sound bite they were looking for.

Sony recently publically stated "We don't buy exclusivity, we earn it", but that leaves many people shaking their heads wondering how exactly Sony thinks the world we live in works. Do they expect third party software developers to screw themselves out of huge ammounts of money due to their respect for Sony's system? I'm very interested in what Sony feels they can do to start deserving companies like Rockstar to not release their product in markets where it will be extremely profitable to them with no compensation whatsoever!