The Xbox 360 has overtaken the PS3 in Europe!!

[Staude]

selnor said:

Staude said:

FishyJoe said:

Staude said:
^you can never know for sure. The point is that sony has a record for actually making their money back and microsoft doesn't However, that is completely besides the point if you read my original post which was only geared towards microsoft

 

On the flip side, MS has a tendency to not do well in early product generations, yet take over the market in successive generations. Anyone remember Windows 1 or 2? How about IE 1 or 2? Those were commercial failures. It wasn't until a few generations passed that MS wound up being on top. I'm not saying it's always worked out that way, but there is no denying that MS has a history succeeding after a few product iterations.

yes but there is a rapid difference here. These previous markets were the OS market where the sole reason for microsofts dominence was their contract with ibm.

IE have never been a commercial success. They contracted and cheated the developers out of their money (by bundling it for free) whereafter they were sued (and lost i think?) and to this day they haven't made money directly off IE. :p (which has lost a lot of it's dominence too)

 

@JHawkNH

Actually my point is that microsoft haven't really made any money of any of their xbox'es yet. With profit from their entertainment devision most likely coming from zune and other products.

 

You seem very narrow minded for business. This gen is completely different. For M$ at least. Sony have been very silly indeed making online free. It isnt helping sell the console at all.

M$ have 14+mill gold subscribers now. (you do the math each month that they make). On top of that they sell shitloads more software than PS3 and in many cases the wii. So it's not just about the HW sale itself. If I'm wrong tell me, but dont you have to have a 360 for Xbox Live? That means their Xbox's are making money. Heres Bach from M$ in late November interview.

“Sometimes we make some money on the hardware, sometimes we lose money,” Bach said.

“The business is neutral for us. We earn money from the games or from our online service Xbox Live, which is going very well.

http://www.gamer.tm/news.php?id=3245

M$ make 70 mill just on Live Gold accounts in 1 month. Based on $5/month of 14 mill Subscriptions (likely more now). Thats 840 mill in 12 months through Live. Add to that the downloads and your probably looking currently at 1bill+ just from Live each year.

 

I know it is, but we have to study the past to project possibilities for the future. Naturally chaos can erupt and anything can happen.

and no you don't need to have an xbox to get live. I had to get live to play one of my pc games online. (not gold though. but it still counts as a live account)

But basically their fee also covers up the loss they have on the console ? well doesn't that basically mean that they sell it too you, only to get you to pay some more for it over time ? as if it had been rented. Ofcourse that's just one perspective of looking at it :p