I fail to see the problem. It's "creating jobs" xD
If people really think its worth it to play an MMO for a small amount of money, then good for them :P If they realized how much money there was in it, they could do it by themselves, and not have an 'employer' :P
I think it would be hard. mainly because if two different programs are used to compile interacting files(modwhatever.dll, hl2.exe) the files dont always agree :P
And there a perfectly compliant C++ compilers, but MSVC++ can compile a slightly off-spec version of C++, which microsoft did on...
I doubt iw will sell for 300, microsoft would take a huge loss, most likely a little over $200 per console(based on the $500 production price of the PS3) I really expect it to be $400 like the PS3.