Who cares who sells the most? It's PROFIT that matters.

[Played_Out]

This article is riddled with inaccuracies:

The guy claims that sony got such high PS2 sales numbers by giving the system away for free (!), despite the actual number of consoles given away being statistically insignificant.

He claims that "in 1983 everybody ran out of money when the public stopped buying games and the entire industry crashed" which is also inaccurate. The public didn't stop buying games, and the entire industry didn't crash. It only affected America, and it was entirely due to over-investment (flooding the market), not declining sales.

Sega was never the market leader. Even when the Dreamcast released without any 6th gen competition, it was being outsold significantly by the PS1.

He ignores the fact that Nintendo's profits primarily come from handhelds, while Sony's come from home consoles (both of which are included, among other things, in the profit/loss statements, despite the fact he is only talking about home console sales). Clearly, a comparison between the three companies at this level is NOT appropriate. (@ VAIO: you obviously ignore the title claim that "PlayStation 2 May Have Won Last Generation’s Sales Battle, but it Lost the Console War")

He ignores the fact that both Sony and Microsoft acquired billions in assets through the purchase of development studios, while Nintendo sold their most important and expensive developer to MS. The sale of Rare alone accounts for -$377m to MS and +$377m to Nintendo.

Needless to say, MS didn't generate losses of $4b+ by loss-leading alone. Companies like Rare and Lionhead do not come cheap. Likewise, the 20 (approx) studios picked up by Sony undoubtedly cost more than $146.47m, meaning that PS2 profits have not been wiped out by the PS3 (obviously).

If he is claiming that Nintendo are good at making money, then he is right on the... er... money, but his suggestion that the GC made more profit than the PS2 is not only wrong, but ridiculous. It is mathematically implausible.

Such a simplistic comparison of profit/loss statements is essentially worthless.