Hmm...given how much money MS has invested into developing Windows into a "viable" multimedia platform (music, movies, games), that statement is patently false.
"Invested." Past tense. When Windows was still establishing itself, then sure, MS put a lot of money into it. But Windows is firmly established now. Currently, they're clearly investing a lot more money into making the Xbox the multimedia platform of choice. All their Windows efforts are either halfassed attempts to gain control and/or force people to upgrade OSes (Games For Windows, GfWL, DX10, Vista-exclusives like Halo 2 and Shadowrun) or attempts to appeal to businesses (increased focus on security). You'll notice that Vista and Windows 7 don't have any features that are particularly useful to gamers, aside from DX10 which has proven fairly worthless and DX11 which will likely prove the same.
Sure, they'd love for you to buy the $60 version of GTA IV on the 360, but they wouldn't be necessarily losing money either if you bought it for the pc.
It's not about losing money, it's about making more. MS gets royalties from 360. They also get money from Live. And they get money from 360 hardware. With PC games, they only make money if they publish. The head of MS's Europe games division even publicly stated that they don't do consecutive 360/PC releases because the PC version would sell better in certain countries (
http://www.vg247.com/2008/07/01/mgs-europe-simultaneous-releases-would-shoot-ourselves-in-the-foot/). It doesn't get any clearer than that.
This comment was edited on Jul 13, 2009, 12:27.