The Xbox sold 25m units. The problem with the Xbox was it was a loss leader for the vast majority of it's life - they reduced the price from $300 to $200 in 6 months which made them lose even more money due to poor sales. The primary reason the Xbox lost so much money was the fact it used off the shelf parts from Pentium, ATI, and so on. None of the parts (or atleast very few) were designed for the Xbox, and was subject to whatever the manufacturers wanted to chart at an open-market (non wholesale, not from their own factories). This made it cost FAR more than what the 360 is. This is why the 360 will make far more money by the 25m unit mark. The parts are made for MS and the 360, and prices are subject to the laws of components (prices are cut by 50% every 18 months), and there's no mark-up involved. MS owns the patents to the chips. This has allowed the 360 to go from $523 on launch day to around $325 on a premium unit in 12 months. Again, this is the same reason the PS3 can't be profitable at the 20~30m unit mark - the parts are too expensive to allow for profit until it sells alot of units well when it actually makes a few bucks per system. Sony makes the parts in conjunction with IBM and other companies which certainly helps costs, but the parts themselves are much trickier to make than 360 parts or Wii parts, as the Cell is a very unique product, as well as the other items.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
