Sal.Paradise said:
Where's the significance of that? I can figure out the spendings for the 2010 quarter with the 2010 numbers, you just work backwards with the percentages. Thing is, you failed to mention the quarter. You told me: "the ACCOUNTS say: Marketing spend for ALL of the E&D division increased $94 million or 27%, meaning that the spend was $350m for kinect, 360, phones and everything else they market in the E&D division. Thats in the accounts, it is undenaible and irefutable." Where is any mention of the quarter? Where is the source or the justification for using one quarter of expenditure to attempt to make me believe they spent only $350 across the whole division, implying that the total spend on Kinect is even less than that, never mind the $500 million figure we all saw in those articles? And yet, when I ask for a source, you didn't give one to me. So you're telling me Microsoft only budgeted to market Kinect for ONE QUARTER? Not any time after the holiday quarter? Marketing just dries up for their flagship device after january? No marketing for the device in the first half of 2010? No, that's ridiculous, of course there was, we all know that. So what about these other quarters that you've helpfully ignored in your analysis (speculation)? Now, I don't have much experience looking at these financials as you've noted, but I'm ok at basic maths. So I looked at the FY 2011 Q4 sales and marketing costs. Know what it said? Earnings Release FY11 Q4 "Xbox franchise drives record year" (Oh, nice!) Introduced Kinect (Oh, nice!) (as in, this quarter last year the Kinect was introduced as our flagship device for the Xbox) "Sales and marketing expenses grew $90 million or 12% primarily reflecting increased Xbox 360 platform marketing activities."
Sounds a lot like the Annual Report I told you about doesn't it? That's $840 million for roughly summer 2010 to summer 2011. That doesnt even include the early 2010 advertising push or any advertising in the last 9 months. And it primarily reflects increased Xbox 360 marketing activities. Nothing can be clearer than this. You speculate based on expenditure for one quarter. I analyse based on expenditure for a fiscal year from quarterly earnigns reports and annual reports, and the marketing that we know occured before that fiscal year, and the marketing we know occured after that fiscal year. It is very realistic to assume that Microsoft set aside $500 million to market the Kinect, based on these figures. VERY realistic.
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Dont know if this helps as I am also bad at maths but heres a quote from EDD 2011 Holiday Quater (I think).
http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/SegmentResults/EntertainmentAndDevicesDivision/fy11/Q2/performance.aspx
"Sales and marketing expenses grew $57 million or 20% primarily reflecting increased Xbox 360 platform marketing activities"
This translate to $285 million marketing expenses for 2010 holiday quater. For the 2011 holiday quater it is $285 + $57 million (20% YOY increase). Does not equate to $500 million, huh?
