I have a question.
(long post, but i guess you could skip down to the bold part)
Hardware tend to be sold with a loss, right?
Production cost + console price = "X", with "X" often being a negative number the first years or so, right? So the more hardware you sell, the higher the total of production cost is going to be, ergo you're hardware revenue is in the red, right?
So why is "console sold" the main thing among bickering girls in these wars? Why wouldn't you be more interested in profit? Serious question. Why is consoles sold such proof of success, when hardware goes for a loss? Software and overall extras (downloads, add ons, adapters, keyboards.. etc.) is usually the moneymakers and tends to be profitable from day one. So once again, why isnt the War about profit instead of who is loosing more money at first?
Never quite understod that part. Obviously i know that hardware too will start being profitable at a certain point. But at this point, a generation of 3-4 year old (young) consoles where the tide has just about started to turn and consoles barely being profitable, why is it important to know who's sold more hardware rather than which division is more profitable? The later may ofcourse include the profit generated by hardware in the end(might not change anything, but it would make more sense!)
Im not trying to start anything with this post. I truly dont understand this cat fight with consoles sold. It all come down to profit for these companies anyway, because i highly doubt that any of them are thinking "yey we're wining the war", except for when they need to push the market their way with statements that they're doing so much better with sales than their competition. SO.. Why isnt success measured in profit?
