2008 at Bruceongames

[HappySqurriel]

Bruceongames said:

Gnizmo said:
Total revenue is far less important than actual profit. Total revenue will always favor the 360 due to the higher price tags on the console itsel, while the Wii is likely to have a much higher profit. While the 360 is doing absolutely fine in its own right, it is losing very badly compared to the Wii.

 

To Microsoft profit is pretty much irrelevant. They have made mountains of it for decades from PC software and have enough money in the bank to buy a country or two. Microsoft want marketshare and that means that turnover is mighty important to them, which is why being a billion dollars ahead of Wii for the year by the end of November is significant. Now they want to ramp up the 360 installed base so they will drop prices and bundle. A 360 with Halo 3 for $199 (for instance) is going to attract a huge number of buyers. And Microsoft can easily do this. Wii will probably outsell 360 in units in North America this year, but not by as much as the fanboys think. Also PS3 is going to have a brilliant year and could beat both of them. We will see, it is very interesting.

There is no company that believes profit is pretty much irrelevant. Microsoft is "investing" in the XBox 360 under the belief that they can recover the losses later on; when you look at their downloadable content and online gameplay that you pay for (even though similar services have been free on the PC for over a decade), as well as their growing video download service it becomes clear how Microsoft intends to turn a profit overall.