| HappySqurriel said:
I don't have the time at the moment to go looking for it, but there was an excellent thread a few years back that looked at the total profits of the gaming divisions of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, and demonstrated that the only company that made money by being a console manufacturer was Nintendo ... The reason for this is that, while Sony and Microsoft have profitable years, their systems hadn't turned enough profit to compensate for the initial loss due to massive R&D and hardware losses. While I wouldn't be surprised if Sony was turning an profit off of the sales of the PS3 and games now, I expect that they're taking on massive losses related to the R&D of the PS4 and the launch of the PS-Vita; and the division on the whole is probably not that profitable.
On a side note, this is one of the reasons why it actuall makes a lot of sense for Microsoft to be releasing their rumoured "undepowered" system in the next generation. If they can cut their R&D costs and produce a nearly-profitable system at launch and the next generation lasts nearly as long as this one they could see substantial profits in the next generation. |
In other words, the loss-leading strategy will no longer work for them from this point forward, the competition is too fierce. The Vita is not good news for them though, it's already a loss-leader. If the PS4 is loss-leader too, then they really need to trim the fat and leverage appealing AAA games like Uncharted + drop the other junk.
