Exactly!  That is the big point of it all.  That have to be honest about business figures, but trust me its all good.

I thought this information was given by the CFO. It's in the OP:

"This piece of information is found within an interview with Sony’s Chief Financial Officer Nobuyuki Oneda, who explained that the company expects to continue reducing the production costs of the PS3 by 15 per cent by March 31st 2011, which is expected to result in “tens of billions of yen.” It was then revealed that Sony loses approximately six cents for every dollar of PS3 hardware sales, or $18 for every $299 console sold in the States."

I thought there was irony for both.

Anyway, the different parts of the two consoles followed very different curves of cost reduction, blue laser, in particular, was subject to different and opposite forces, the natural cost reduction as production increases and process is refined, and occasional shortages tending to keep the price high, particularly when HD-DVD was still fighting the format war, then, after the format war victory, BD could really start the normal fast cost reduction of optical drives when they reach sufficient maturity. Relying on more standard components, XB360 followed a more regular curve, but its initial serious cooling problems added unpredicted costs, not only to repair or replace faultyunits, but to redesign mobos and cooling several times (CPU and GPU shrinking is normal during their life and after the costs of the shift they start producing savings, but it can be argued that the bigger initial process, having to be abandoned early for cooling problems, spread its costs over a smaller number of units, so it gave more fixed costs than predicted while the shrunk processes will follow their normal lifecycles).

Then there are other factors, some costs, like shipping and warehousing, are roughly fixed, so they weigh in proportion more on cheaper units. Not to mention that selling more in EU, with strong Euro and weak Dollar, is more profitable (or less costly when sales ar still at a loss) than selling more in USA.

Sony isn't winning by any means, but some things it needed, some really dangerous gambles, went eventually the right way, but now it needs to sell at least another 30M+ PS3 to keep the brand alive and respected, but at least another 40M+, instead, if it wants to recover the huge costs too.

MS is in a much better financial position, but weren't it for Halo, Gears of War and other exclusive huge successes and the huge success on it of some multiplatforms too, it would be unimpressive, even disappointing having lost its initial lead on Wii in less than one year. To better even more the financial aspect, XB360 enjoys the highest tie ratio, it's a really excellent SW seller.

Yup, you guys are right...the PS brand is back to huge profits...nvm my comments...it's all good!

Lol... not only are you grasping at straws... but now you are putting words in peoples mouth... give it a rest dude.

I think the Beast was dead serious. , $18 is nothing compared to what they were losing on the 'fat' They have cut costs fast and with software on the up they could show a profit for half this fiscal. Maybe this is the last year in the red for SCE? I'm no fan but that's better than I expected. I honestly thought the huge increase in sales would mean more losses. Once per thread someone says something that isn't sarcastic. Twice now.

What ever floats ur boat....

Once more, $18 loss per $299 isn't accurate... Sony didn't say that, WSJ didn't report that. The only accurate figure is six cent loss per dollar on hardware sales. That's a breakdown of the total figure, meaning everything (120GBs and 250GBs) added up, at various pricepoints in various markets. The loss for the $299 American SKU is likely quite a bit higher, and offset by higher pricepoints elsewhere.

I would say that the 250GB profit won't be enough to overcome the 120GB loss. My guess is that the 120GB outsells the 250GB by a factor of 6 to 1. So the 250 profit would be in the noise and factored into the 6% loss overall for hardware.

LMFAO!!! bu bu bu but I do not accept this!!!! it shud be over $200 loss!!!!!!