For general ballpark here, MS paid BioWare about $25M for the Mass Effect trilogy and $25 to SK for the Too Human Trilogy. I think most hardcore gamers would prefer 2 great new IPs than a single IP that was big last gen but who knows what they are doing to it this gen to make it stand out (many big selling games on generation take a step back in successive generations).

On the other hand GTA has to be one of the biggest titles thus far in the pretty slim pickings we have seen in terms of "major industry titles that appeal to a wider/new demographic". Even if the ME trilogy sells a whopping 5M, a single GTA game can easily break 10M. GTA, dollar-for-dollar / unit-for-unit, may not be a bad bet. It surely will sell well and get casuals involved. But more than that MS is using it to hype its best feature: LIVE. Killer content (GTA expansions) for their killer app (Live). Sometimes you pay a premium to get the #1 guy in the industry to toss their weight behind you. Yet if MS takes a chunk of DLC and gets a basic $6 royalty per copy sold, at 10M copies MS could actually come out ahead -- but I bet Take Two also got a sweetheart deal on royalties. It is too important of a title to have time and date, and like others said when the deal went down over a year ago I am sure MS was hedging their bets that Sony would come out swinging hard and not... flopping.

Bargain!

Then start complaining. It is standard business practices in this industry to fund titles, be it cash advances, low royalties, no interest loans, and even pay-for-exclusives, to get an edge of some sort. Every company does it MS has essentially paid R* to make content for them. What is wrong with that? R* can say no if they wish. Sony could give them $50M to fund an equally ambitious project. Nothing is stopping them.

You would've had numerous consequtive heart attacks had you been gaming back in the Saturn/PSX days where multiplatform appearances on the Saturn kept disappearing like soldier grunts in a Splinter Cell game.