Analyst: Xbox "generates" $2 billion in losses for MS. Hides it with patent royalties

[drkohler]

Seece said:

Fact is in NO year od the EDD/Xbox Division has it lost $2 billion. That's with Xbox making serious losses in the run up to 360 launching and losing $1b on RROD and losses on the console itself.

I think by looking at Sony and Nintendo it's evident MS are making profit. The 360 is profitable at the price it's at (after two revisions) the software is profitable, and live is profitable. None of those are 'sinkhole's.

360 ecosystem will be propping up Xbox One development.

MS has always carefully hidden the breakdown within ED&D. At all times, it contained groups that were highly profitable (Peripherals, Mac Software, Live, etc), and stuff that were (sometimes highly) unprofitable. Then there has always been vreative accounting, like: The $1b ADDITIONAL loss due to rrod was NOT charged to ED&D. The $1b PR stunts with Kinect were NOT fully charged to RD&D. The XBox360 was ONLY profitable in the US hardware-wise (which happens to be its best territory. Does anyone really think the $189 Kinect bundles are profitable hardware-wise in Europe?). At the end of the day, there must be a reason why people including Allen (biggest shareholder in MS stock) want XBox out of MS....