| Fuzzmosis said: HappySquirrel: Microsoft? Both consoles have launched with them losing money at their retail price points. Add in markup from channels and retail. If only Dos was sold like that. But that only cost them 40K. (Bill Gates was smart and Savvy, if evil) |
I've personally never been all that convinced that the hardware losses were the primarly reason that Microsoft has been losing money on the XBox. Microsoft from day 1 has been spending more money that Sony and Nintendo on Marketing, exclusive games, and buying development studios; Microsoft's profitability was also hurt further because although they produced a similar number of games as Sony and Nintendo in the same time frame only a small fraction broke 1 Million units sold worldwide and a large portion of them were rumored to be unprofitable.
As a demonstration:
| Name | Console | Publisher | Japan | America | Others | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Halo 2 | Microsoft | 0.11 | 6.46 | 1.67 | 8.24 |
| | Halo | Microsoft | 0.10 | 4.91 | 1.42 | 6.43 |
| | Fable | Microsoft | 0.00 | 1.95 | 0.65 | 2.60 |
| | Project Gotham Racing | Microsoft | 0.05 | 1.40 | 0.69 | 2.14 |
| | Project Gotham Racing 2 | Microsoft | 0.04 | 0.85 | 0.67 | 1.56 |
| | Forza Motorsport | Microsoft | 0.00 | 0.45 | 0.56 | 1.01 |
| Totals (6 matches) | 0.3 | 16.0 | 5.7 | 22.0 |
Number of Microsoft Game Studio games on the XBox: 65
Million Seller Percentage of game releases: ~10%
| Name | Console | Publisher | Japan | America | Others | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Mario Kart: Double Dash | Nintendo | 0.89 | 3.85 | 1.86 | 6.60 |
| | Super Smash Bros Melee | Nintendo | 1.44 | 4.06 | 1.08 | 6.58 |
| | Super Mario Sunshine | Nintendo | 0.87 | 3.73 | 1.31 | 5.91 |
| | The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker | Nintendo | 0.89 | 2.44 | 1.05 | 4.38 |
| | Luigi Mansion | Nintendo | 0.46 | 2.21 | 0.72 | 3.39 |
| | Metroid Prime | Nintendo | 0.12 | 1.92 | 0.73 | 2.77 |
| | Pokemon Collosseum | Nintendo | 0.71 | 1.17 | 0.62 | 2.50 |
| | Animal Crossing | Nintendo | 0.66 | 1.68 | 0.15 | 2.49 |
| | Mario Party 4 | Nintendo | 0.92 | 1.13 | 0.39 | 2.44 |
| | Mario Party 5 | Nintendo | 0.73 | 0.96 | 0.36 | 2.05 |
| | Paper Mario 2 | Nintendo | 0.46 | 1.23 | 0.26 | 1.95 |
| | Starfox Adventures | Nintendo | 0.32 | 0.95 | 0.58 | 1.85 |
| | Pikmin | Nintendo | 0.56 | 0.78 | 0.27 | 1.61 |
| | Mario Party 6 | Nintendo | 0.60 | 0.85 | 0.11 | 1.56 |
| | Super Mario Strikers | Nintendo | 0.21 | 0.91 | 0.42 | 1.54 |
| | Kirbys Air Ride | Nintendo | 0.45 | 0.96 | 0.12 | 1.53 |
| | Mario Party 7 | Nintendo | 0.47 | 0.90 | 0.11 | 1.48 |
| | Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour | Nintendo | 0.25 | 1.03 | 0.15 | 1.43 |
| | The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess | Nintendo | 0.04 | 0.92 | 0.34 | 1.30 |
| | Metroid Prime 2: Echoes | Nintendo | 0.07 | 0.82 | 0.37 | 1.26 |
| | Pokemon XD | Nintendo | 0.35 | 0.58 | 0.21 | 1.14 |
| | Mario Power Tennis | Nintendo | 0.46 | 0.53 | 0.15 | 1.14 |
| | Pokemon XD: Gale Of Darkness | Nintendo | 0.52 | 0.59 | 0.00 | 1.11 |
| | Donkey Konga | Nintendo | 0.46 | 0.43 | 0.17 | 1.06 |
| | Pikmin 2 | Nintendo | 0.56 | 0.35 | 0.14 | 1.05 |
| Totals (25 matches) | 13.5 | 35.0 | 11.7 | 60.1 |
Number of Nintendo published games on the Gamecube: 62
Million Seller Percentage of game releases: ~45%
The reason I brought Nintendo into this is becase I wanted to point out how low Microsoft's gaming income was by using sales on a system that sold worse than the original XBox. The Console industry has a ton of money sinks and Microsoft simply did not make enough money to cover their expenses and this (not hardware losses) is why they have lost so much money.
