| scottie said: You didn't take into account that Valve makes some very high selling games, which certainly help their profits. Sony and MS both spend a ton in RnD and subsidies for their hardware, Valve does not have to. I suspect you're right about the userbase thing, and I don't think that hosting is as expensive as some claim it to be. |
Sony and Microsoft also make some very high selling games.
As for the bolded, I'm inclined to believe this is the real case. I believe the networks themselves are for the most part profitable ventures (especially given that Valve seems to be improving Steam at a faster rate than either MS or Sony - cloud saving being a good example), and charging for the network is simply to cover R&D and other hardware related issues - issues that were just as prevalent in previous generations yet we were not forced to pay for via subscriptions.
Edit:
Although I suppose the royalties per game that were once meant to solely cover the cost of hardware development and manufacturing are now required to cover both hardware costs AND network costs. On the other hand, I'd assume the development costs of Steam's services (cloud storage, Steam Play for cross-client PC/MAC users, etc.) are quite hefty.
