Hmm. I was pretty sure the thread topic was about the new SKUs of the 360. I was, and I believe Impulsivity was, pointing out that aggravating one of the, currently minor, negative factors of the E&D division (the Arcade SKU) is probably not in MS's best interest, if they want to stay profitable.

The E&D division makes plenty on software, etc. -- but the Arcade could be, and probably is, hurting that profitability. If it were to hurt more (I think it only hurts a little right now), the problem would exaggerate, and the division might not appear profitable for some time, which would be terrible for MS, this year.

Hence -- new 20GB HDD for Arcade.. extremely unlikely, IMO. Most of the other SKU rumors wouldn't cost much, except for the HDMI cable one, which I also don't believe will happen, and for the same reason.

Oh boy. This is like shooting fish in a barrel =/

No, Impulsivity. Things have changed, a lot. For starters, Microsoft owns the chips inside the 360. The CPU and GPU of the first Xbox were owned by the corporations that designed them. As a result, Microsoft wasn't able to shop around for the cheapest foundry. On top of that, they had to pay royalties for the chips on every Xbox sold. 

What's changed is that Microsoft owns everything inside the 360. They shop for the cheapest foundries, they accelerate die shrinks and they do not pay royalties.

But I guess when you have an axe to grind, anything goes. Well, Microsoft is lucky keyboard and mice have sold so, so much. You know, I do wonder how much mice and keyboard you need to sell to change your results from -1 billion per quarter to +half a billion per quarter.

In the meanwhile, the ps3 is doing so, so damn good it's eating all the profits from ps2 hardware and software, all the profits from psp hardware and software and all the profits generated by psn. Heck, the ps3 losses are so big on top of eating all that profit it's making Sony's gaming division post huge losses. 

Frankly, you can hide behind the E&D division excuse for as long as you want. If that's the way you want to live, so be it. But out of both corporations, there's just one making money outta videogames.

Microsoft said they were slightly profitable on Arcade hardware once accessories were factored in a while ago after the $200 price became reality. I can't remember where but that was a statement they made to that effect.

Pwned

Bitmap Frogs: "Frankly, you can hide behind the E&D division excuse for as long as you want. If that's the way you want to live, so be it. But out of both corporations, there's just one making money outta videogames."

What are you talking about? I thought both MS and Sony announced profits for their respective game divisions last quarter? And who gives a "care" about the PS3, or Sony, in this thread? We're talking 360 SKUs here.

Also, if you think that owning the intellectual rights to some of the chips in the 360 somehow justifies a "360 for every child" cheap-to-build wonder program, especially when the dollar is so weak, you're nuts.  The Arcade costs more today than it ever did, when it comes to the bottom line -- thanks to the recent tanking of the dollar, and the fact that MS is a US-based corp -- and the factories that mass-produce 360 parts?  Not in the US.

Sony Game posted a staggering four million dollars profit. Christmas quarter. 

Blame Impulsivity, he couldn't resist crapping the thread with his senseless axe-grinding and agenda-pushing posting. He's just posting in the thread to market the ps3. 

And that is Nintendo. Sure MS is ticking in som cash now but they are miles away from getting even positive return for all the investment in 360, not to speak about Xbox 1.

The truth is that only 1 company of all 3 has done a succesfull jobb in makin money. If Microsoft and Sony had videoconsole as their prime market, like Nintendo, they wouldn't have surrived long.

Explain exactly how you know they don't make profit on the Arcade? For what I know there is no such report on that, latest i heard after pricecut was breakeven, so what do you base this statement on? Since the Japser is on the market know, with lower manufacturing cost (both with the 65nm GPU and internal memort instead of external) I would say that it is very likley for the Arcade to be on the green side again, and with good margins in Europe.

I agree that HDD is the monst expensive upgrade. Since the Arcade concept clearly works, even if many are bashing them for it, there is know need to radicaly change it.

I wouldn't scrap the Elite, people like the black thing. But since they increased the value on Pro and Arcade while Elite remained the same they have to expect lower Elite sales.

Time for internal WiFi in Elite maybe? Since Elite was the first to get HDMI it wouldn't be strange if the created a new improved valuable Elite.

I thought it was common knowledge a $200 arcade made a profit for MS?
MS could easily afford to go $150 to piss Sony off.

Microsoft is being attacked from all sides someone needs to show Bit a map to the DOW where M$ gains are like 1/17th that of Google and the like.

Get your Hubris head out of the sand and stop pretending Microsoft is invincible. Like they didn't just cut 5,000 employees, like Vista wasn't a huge failure, like the HD-DVD won the format war, like Zune wasn't a joke, like LIVE for Windows made wasn't a joke, like the bucketloads of cash for exclusives paid off (yeah right), like PS3 didn't ousell the 360 last week at TWICE the price, like PSN isn't growing, like the Macintosh userbase isn't growing like you don't know what's good hommie.

Nobody here is saying that Sony hasn't lost a lot of money too but at least we know theres now way the arcade is outselling the PS3 without a HD or a pricecut.

/thread