Why does anyone think MS can pick and choose what qtr to show R&D for the Xbox One. It is an expense to the division in whatever quarter the work/money is done in. Otherwise it would show up in other ways.

Its sounds like an unusual amount of money to spend, but bear in mind they will potentially sell over a 100 million of those controllers. Its an investment they will recoup.

They could have recycled the original 360 controller, but the new one does seem to be an improvment.

I don't think losses that old are relevant to the OP. The original Xbox is done and 360 isn't bleeding money anymore.

I believe its saying the Xbox brand is still bleeding money and that's probably because of money invested in the X1. That is billions of dollars.

It seems like you're selective in when you choose to belive them.

This person's credibility is larger than that of some random people on gaming forums who have no knowledge of the situation.

exactly.

Microsoft has to follow US GAAP accounting standards.  For actual R&D that means it has to be expensed in the period it's conducted.  They would have to expense the cost when it's incurred by law.  There is no way they would hide that as it would be criminal (think Enron) - although pinpointing to a division can be tricky as those division numbers aren't required as far as I'm aware so they could assign certain costs across divisions for example that maybe aren't really equally shared.  

Sony would be following Japanese GAAP.  I have no idea what Japan requires.  It's possible they depreciate R&D which would spread those costs out over a number of years (probably 5) in which case the PS4 costs would be spread over a longer period of time.   If not then it could be equally "lumpy" if either company has a spike in R&D for 1 or more periods.  Typically I'd imagine that R&D is fairly linear over multiple years - a dedicated team dedicated to Next Gen that starts around launch of the previous gen - with some ramp up in the last year or 2.

I trust investors and shareholders more than forum dwellers. The fact is Xbox is a huge loss for M$. And M$ doesn't like that. Wouldn't be shocked if MS eventually dumps it or dissolves it. Gaming isn't their primary focus, never has been.

XO is too important in the MS project of conquering our whole livingroom the way Apple is doing this (Win PC + Win Tablet + Win Smartphone + XO all working together). They won't sell it.


@DirtyP2002 - I hope you're gonna keep that sig on you once Titanfall releases on PS4. Cause you know it will, don't you?

The first Android phone was in 2008 wasn't it?

It seems like you're always wrong about every analysis you try to make.

And yeah, I'm sure you're an expert on Richard Sherlund versus the posters on NeoGAF versus the information MS releases that we can all see and comprehend.

Quickly looked into it apparently this was said "The investments in redesigning a controller go into the hundreds of millions of dollars in tooling and R&D costs," Alam said. 

from gamespot I got that.  They apparently interviewed the general manager of Xbox Accessories.  

So "hundreds" of millions is very vague, but I wouldn't be surprised if that money was invested for essentially rumble in triggers.  I personally feel a bunch of managers bought yachts.  But looking at MS just pouring that much money into essentially a few people researching ergonomics I really don't want to know how much they invested in making a comparatively weak peice of hardware on a relatively large piece of silicon (Esram was quite a large chunk of die space...)  I really wouldn't want to look at the engineering mess that was esram + move engines.  Plus the software to get 3 OS' running concurrently; wouldn't be surprised if they had a team of at least 20 coders, getting paid a decent wage, just on the OS.  Getting exclusivity from EA for TitanFall sure as hell wasn't cheap or any of the third party exclusives.  Making the game is very pultry compared to the money they could have been making on the PS4.