How can you describe something as "an absolute steal," but then in the next sentence say it "doesn't exactly feel underpriced, either"? There's some kind of glitch in the hyperbole generator there.

The concept has to be protected before a finalized design is settled upon, because the people who came up with the idea then have to work with industrial designers and manufacturers to develop prototypes and, ultimately, the finished product. If the overall concept isn't patented, any number of people in the manufacturing process (not to mention people involved in peripheral ways, e.g. shipping, telecom) could then take the idea and run with it, achieving a finished product sooner simply because they are better capitalized. Your assertion that only a finalized product design should be patentable will always favor only the richest, most well-established companies.

Metal Gear and GTA have developed into rather sophisticated satirical critiques on macho bullshit and killing, I'd say. Although stupid people can still play them stupidly.

I love both Forza and the PGR series, but I think it was an unusual decision to have the Forza 360 bundle instead of a PGR bundle. It's a hardcore racing sim and doesn't have the immediate mass appeal (or, frankly, the sense of speed) of the PGR series. Microsoft did bundle PGR3 with the wireless racing wheel prior to the release of Forza 2, but of course the wheel would have more appeal to hardcore sim racers. So it just seems like a very confused and muddled strategy for handling these two very different series.

I'd love to play it.