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Rpruett on 19 March 2009
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thx1139 said:
Rpruett said:
Darc Requiem said:
Soul_tech10 said:
Microsoft is in a worst position than sony, just add up the figures above and you will, see why.
Microsof is the only one with a negative total, -6mil.

Sony's game division SCE is losing money and the company is losing money as a whole. That puts Sony in the worst position. Microsoft's game divison is still in the red overall but has been posting profits over the last year. More importantly, Microsoft isn't in debt. Sony is. The strong Yen is putting an additional strain on Sony where as it's making things easier for Microsoft.

 

 

Microsoft's game division is still far in the red overall.  They didn't start posting profits till the 3rd year the 360 was on the market.  Like I said, we will see if Sony can post profits with it's 3rd year on the market. (I'm guessing they can).   Also the Microsoft numbers hide the costs of the RROD issue (IMHO), which is an ongoing cost that is going to hurt their bottom line.

 

The 360 only has a stronger umbrella over their head but it's still in the middle of a downpour.    As it boils down to the systems?  The 360 is in a worse position (Unless  Sony takes a third straight year of loss).

 

MS with the 360 is in a far better position than Sony with the PS3.  The 360 is just now entering its most profitable period.  The hardware is profitable, software sales are of course profitable and the 360 is a software selling beast, and the 360 also has the benefit of selling 10,000,000+ Xbox Live Gold subscriptions per year (This is like Halo 3 releasing every year). It will be 3+ years before the nextbox shows up and the 360 will be very profitable each year.

The PS3 has yet to reach profitability and the poor performance of the PS3 will force Sony to release the PS4 right around the same time as the nextbox and whatever Nintendo releases.  This cuts short the core years of profitability for the PS3.

Look at is this way. 

2009 PS3 will probably do break even business (depending on when the price reduction happens, the earlier the cut the higher the loss).
2010 PS3 is modestly profitable (See 360 last year)
2011 PS3 is profitable
2012 PS3 is profitable, but PS4 will probably release

The 360 has been out on a market for a full year longer.  The hardware inside is older and therefore cheaper.  The PS3 (In it's third year) is also on the verge of making profit per PS3.  It too will soon be entering it's most profitable period.

The PS3 and 360 have very similar attach rates.  The software sales by both companies are fine.    The 360 does have the benefit of Xbox Live subscriptions per year but the negative income of the RROD issue.  

 

The PS3 will reach profitability within the first half of this year.  If as you say the nextbox won't release for 3+ years.  How again will the PS3 have it's profitability years cut short but the 360 won't? Sounds more like wishful thinking to me.

  The next Nintendo project is probably going to be the Wii HD,  which really is more of a direct competition for 360/PS3.  Which just further confirms that this generation is probably going to last longer than previous ones.  If any single company controls where this next generation goes,  it's Nintendo.   Nintendo has no reason to release a new system until a series of price cuts and total degradation of sales which could be quite sometime.

 

PS4 can release whenever Sony feels necessary.  It doesn't have to follow Microsofts release schedule.  For all you know, Sony could release the PS4 before the nextbox. It could release a year later.  The Wii released a year later and pounced it's competition.  

 

 

It could very well playout the way you mentioned above.  Although the hardware costs won't continue to drop much more for the 360.  The hardware inside the PS3 will fall faster (Especially if the adoption rate of Blu-Ray keeps on it's current pace or accelerates further).