HappySqurriel said:
TheBigFatJ said:
The Xbox division is about 7 billion in debt -- the latest 1 billion was due to the additional costs incurred by the RROD issues. This does include some fairly costly acquisitions, most notably Rare.
Microsoft has not yet had a profitable quarter with the Xbox division, but because they front-loaded all of their repair costs into last year, they may be able to have an 'on-paper' profitable quarter this quarter with Halo 3 launching. Some analysts are indicating Microsoft could have a 'slightly profitable' quarter.
This, of course, does not indicate they'll have a real profitable year, but it is the first step. Nor does it indicate that they'll generate a profit from the Xbox 360 generation. However, Microsoft has some investors that want to see them get at least one year of profitability of any kind.
Microsoft is unique among the big console companies as they're the only one consistently operating at a loss. Nintendo hasn't had a year without big profits for a long time and Sony hasn't had two consecutive years of loss with its playstation brand. |
I thought they had 1 profitable quarter when Halo 2 was released? Regardless, with the business model that Microsoft uses it would take 2 or 3 generations where the XBox was as successful as the PS2 in order to put the division in a net-profit position; it would take at least 3 generations for it to have made more sense to 'invest' in the XBox than to put their money in the bank. Everytime someone brings up Microsoft's profitability with the XBox 360 I end up wondering what the underlying motivation is for Microsoft to continue with this line of products; it could be a way to defend their operating system monopoly, dominate the TVPC market, or possibly set up a monopoly where people are (dramatically) overcharged for products that are marginally better than what you can get for free. |
Well can you apply for the Microsoft job and fix it then? O_O
