6. Why would MS not purchase BioWare / Pandemic? Why not make an offer to purchase Take-Two? Wouldn't purchasing these two developers strengthen MS Game Studio's position in developing 1st party games that would be MS exclusives (ie..Xbox brand and Windows-based products)?

We have a tremendous amount of respect for our friends at BioWare and truly enjoyed our publishing relationship with that studio. However, we didn't have any relationship or past experience working with Pandemic or Take-Two, so that is a major hurdle for us to overcome, especially at their prices. Without discussing the relative merits of each of those situations, I'll just say that we're not motivated by the actions of others and instead try to focus on the best places for us to invest our financial and human capital. There's an awful lot you can do with $3 billion!

7. What will the business model be for XNA games? How much will they cost and how do they forecast this competing with the games currently on XBLA?

Right now we are really focused on a successful community games beta launch this spring where members of the XNA Creators Club will be able to create and test our community games pipeline. Later this summer we will provide full details on the business models for community games on Xbox LIVE, but I can tell you that we don't expect them to compete with XBLA games.

8. Windows Live for PC hasn't quite achieved the success or mainstream recognition as you would have hoped according to some in the industry, and with the perceived weakening of Microsoft Game Studios as a first party developer with the loss of some studios, do you think the investment in splitting resources between your console platform and your PC platform is a good enough strategy to maintain?

Windows is a very important part of our gaming business. We are continually investing resources in both Games for Windows and the Xbox 360. PC gamers are moving more and more online so you'll see us invest more in this space moving ahead. Microsoft is uniquely positioned to unify gaming, e-commerce, and community across console and PC platforms - in less than a year, we introduced Games for Windows-LIVE, bringing the same foundation for online play that's so popular on the XBOX 360 to Windows. You'll see our service on Windows continue to evolve just as Xbox LIVE has incorporated new functionality over time.

9. What is Microsoft doing to remedy the DRM issues affecting those who have suffered the red ring of death? It's been over two months since I received my new console (unit #3) and I still cannot access content that was purchased with my original 360 while I'm offline. For people who do most of their gaming offline, it is extremely inconvenient. It has also caused me to hold off on future Live purchases for fear of going through this again should I suffer another hardware failure. It makes sense that if you've paid for DLC, you should be able to enjoy it online or off. When are we going to see a resolution?

I can absolutely understand your frustration. Please know that we have taken major steps to address the hardware issues experienced by our customers so that they won't have to deal with this in the future. For people in your shoes, I think we have an amicable solution already in place. I recommend that you visit http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemuse/xbox360/account/postrepair.htm for instructions. This process will only require you to connect to Xbox LIVE once to download the content again. Once you follow this process, you should be able to play previously downloaded content whether you are signed into Xbox LIVE or not. If for some reason this process does not work for you, please contact 1-800-4MY-XBOX.

10. You've been with Microsoft for a long time (since 1990). What have you learned professionally from working at a massive corporation all these years? How have you applied this knowledge to MGS?

We weren't always so massive; we were just a $600 million company with 10,000 employees when I started! Ok, so we've always been a big company. It would be difficult to capture everything I've learned in 17+ years, but I truly have learned a ton. Probably the most important lesson I've learned is to take a long-term view of the business and to do the things necessary to win in the long run. Although they are very different businesses, we've learned many important lessons in Windows and Office that we've been able to apply both with Xbox 360 and with MGS. And I know that we're committed to winning in the long run in these businesses!