| This doesn't effect my decision to give Vanguard a try. We'll never know the whole truth (and they aren't obligated to tell us), but my instincts tell me XBox 360, Vista, and WoW mass market appeal, factored heavily into the decision. I'm not sure how far back the Sigil/MS relationship goes, but it's before the 6 million subs WoW is claiming now, and that is likely an issue - if MS was happy with a 250k-500k projection at a time when 1 million was "a lot", contrast to today today with WoW's redefinition of success. 360 and/or Vista support/exclusivity (the next Halo is supposed to be Vista only IIRC) could have been serious issues of cotention too. Release date could have been an issue, but I doubt it was the only one.
As a small aside, I'm encouraged that Sigil could afford to buy back the rights (I doubt SoE payed off MS completely in the deal). Someone is laying out real money on VG.
-Jovec | 