It seems as if more money, time and effort was put into forcing the game to be vista only compatible. Hired gun was paid to ensure that the game would only work on Vista and not any previous versions of windows. Had the game been developed like ANY other DX9 game, it would most likely work on both XP and Vista just fine with no extra work done, except with probably less issues in XP as DX9 is emulated in vista. The most clear primary motive was to make vista appear more valuable by slapping exclusive titles on the side. Not to think it would sell the operating system, but just give it more shine and appeal. A small little < 1mb homebrewed loader was able fix it to run on XP just fine with minor issues. There is no serious "cross platform" compatibility adjustments need to be made for something to be both XP and vista compatible, so any claims that it's primary motive was to save money or prevent losses making the game "cross platform" between windows and windows (laugh) is just bull.
There is nothing in my mind that makes me even think the game would have been less successful if it was unlocked to work on XP. Microsoft has learned their lesson with whoring games just to increase vista's value the hard way with the major lack in H2V's and g4wl's success which is why Gears of War and as well as games for windows Live are now being planned to be XP compatible. The scandal is over.
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