Bill

In another year or two Nintendo will issue some sort of statement saying that in their experience no one is interested in online, due to the lack of participation in their online experience. What they won't understand is that very few people will use their online experience because they aren't giving customers what they want... which really is what they did with the Wii as well. They didn't look for a demand and then fill it, instead they tried to find an area where there was no demand and then create it. So maybe Wii will be the system for parents who are scared their children will be molested and the friend codes will be their way of feeling safe. Either way, it's becoming more and more obvious they care more about the nongamer than the gamer. This makes sense of course, from a business point of view, because there are a lot more nongamers out there to sell to than gamers.

Part of the reason is likely that managing publishing rights is a very complicated thing to do. Microsoft is smart to license Warner/Chappell to administer the publishing rights to their catalog. Warner/Chappell has a lot of experience and a lot of pre-existing licensing deals that they can leverage the Microsoft catalog with, including Guitar Hero, Ringtones, Sheet Music and Guitar Tab. I'd expect Musicnotes.com to be selling sheet music for the Halo theme soon, now that this deal is in place, since they have a contract in place that allows them to sell sheet music and guitar tab from the Warner/Chappell catalog, but nothing directly with Microsoft.

Of course, Microsoft still gets paid royalties from all licensing done by Warner/Chappell - Warner/Chappell just gets a cut for administration (or at least this is how these deals normally work).

Basically, expect Microsoft's music to be much more widely licensed than previously since it's now in the hands of a company who's expertise is in these sorts of things.