Profit Numbers: Nintendo, Sony (Game Segment) and Microsoft (EDD Segment)

[Alby_da_Wolf]

Bitmap Frogs said:

Alby_da_Wolf said:

Bitmap Frogs said:

That's totally off-topic, you were implying MS was hiding EDD expenses within the "overhead" category. 

If you want to change the subject towards what might be hiding inside the EDD, it's beaten to death. The grim truth is no one knows, except Microsoft. From the outside the outlook of the EDD isn't that good... the Zune is a disaster, Windows Mobile is probably losing money (we know how much they make because we have pretty good figures for the cellphone market), obviously Surface, Sphere and whatever crackpot research they are doing its losing money too. The only potentially profitable ventures are their mice, keyboards and the 360.

The only unknown factor is MS statement that the division "handles" and "is responsible for" retail sales for Windows and Office, which probably means the EDD handles the sales (to unify their retailer relationships) while the money goes to the Windows and Office divisions. But we don't know, for sure.

Anyways, while the X360's numbers aren't in plain sight, considering what's in the division and the turnover in numbers (from huge losses to modest profits) which has happened in the same timeframe on which the X360 took off, either they are selling astronomical amounts of keyboards or the 360 has turned a corner.

 

"Hiding" would be a lie, as MS openly states that "Corporate level activity" includes R&D and support, so it isn't by any means hiding the fact (but this fact makes things less clear).

About EDD, well, I incorrectly understood that you didn't think too it's difficult to precisely know how things go inside it. Anyway your theory is as good as mine, very much depends on Win Mobile earning or losing (Win CE should be profiting, but Win Mobile in the past lost a lot and results have always been quite disappointing compared to MS' efforts).

About XB360, in case it's profiting as a whole, it's quite likely that XBL is profiting, high end XB360 models are profiting too or at least breaking even, first party games and royalties are giving huge profits without any doubt and Arcade is losing.

 

It's just Microsoft being over-cautious in their finantials. They get a lot of government scrutiny.

Win Mobile is a sink. I lurk cellphone forums and the cellphone market has some very good public numbers. We know how many WinMo cellphones are shipped and well, it doesn't add up.

By the way, why should the Arcade lose money? The 360 is over three years old, the silicon has been shrunk, yields have increased dramatically, it has no HDD, headset nor anything... what's your reasoning behind that.

 

Very rough calculation: if PS3 is breaking even at $400, subtracting HDD cost, cost difference between Cell and Xenon, cost difference between BD and DVD, and all other smaller differences, do you think we get a sum smaller than $200? BD drives are quite cheap now, an 80GB HDD is cheap too, Cell has already been produced in more than 20 million units, while Xenon almost 30 million, and it's simpler, so we know is cheaper than Cell, but not enormously cheaper. OTOH the price difference between Pro and Arcade is high enough, compared to the additional equipment, to make Pro break even or even profit a little bit.