Yes, you're right. But you also obviously knew what Mr.Metralha meant.

Sony put Blu-Ray in the PS3 with the short term goal of establishing it over HD-DVD at a loss of profit. The long term goal was of course profit from Blu ray revenue

MS sank a lot of money into taking the PS3's games and gamers, which cost them a lot. However the ultimate goal is of course profit.

 Mr.Metralha should have, if he wanted to be completely accurate, stated that "Profits for Microsoft Gaming division at this current point in time isn't their primary goal." But he didn't, because it's not necessary. Every can read it and know what he meant.

Once again, profit was not the main objective, it doesn't have to be. Sony made the mistake of claiming they would become the definative media center for households with the PS brand, this was a claim that they would overtake MS in their push towards the very same goal. MS entered  the gaming market to push Sony out, it hasn't worked quite as they had hoped, and they lost a TON of money on the origional Xbox, but they stuck their foot in the door, and thus far have kept Sony from acheiving their goal. This is actually a pretty common business proceedure, edge out the competition, if you lose money on the venture, but put your competition out of business, you win, you have a softcore monopoly. Sony was/is trying to do it to MS on the Media Center, and MS pushed back. Now, I suspect MS has found gaming to be a relatively profitable venture and is no longer in it solely to push Sony out.

With the manufacturing costs being pinned as $150 (Microsoft probably cut some corners to make it cheaper), which doesn't including shipping and packaging. The R & D being rumoured to be in the high hundred of millions and Microsoft PR coming out and saying they are spending more money on the Kinect launch than they did on the huge 360 launch. I can honestly say I don't see them pulling a profit when they release it this year. We'll see how it does for them down the line though, could sell them more consoles, games, accessories etc.

It's $150 for two cameras. Manufacturing wise, it's making a profit or at least, not a loss, it's marketing that is what will be the drag on profits, but then they market Halo and Gears and others heavily and they always profit on that. So i'd say it's profit all the way, unless it bombs, which is unlikely at this stage.

Microsoft just wants people to know Xbox even MORE so Next Gen they will have alot more sales in their 1st years... So Kinect isnt going to give them profit for now but will pay off next gen with more sales.

kinect must be a costly device, initiaLLY it would have been a lot more but they cut the tech down. even so its selling at a losss but it will make up with software sals. thats why SW for kinect is full price £39.99

will almost certainly be profitable in the long run

I believe it is doubtful that Kinect is being sold at a loss.  More likely Kinect hardware sold at a nice profit. I for one think they want to first get the earlier adopters at $150 standalone and $299 bundle. Then next year drop price to $99/$249 and still make a nice profit.

we'll see...

obviously you have not read my original post. Where in it did I mention playstation at all?We all know that playstation 3 is a financial disaster for sony. We have known that for quite a while so there is no need to make a thread for it as of now. If anything your post just help explain my post a little bit better. If kinect is turning out to be like the ps3 will it end up making a profit? Please stay on topic

You are assuming Kinect is a major part of MS's business, reality is, it's just a drop in the bucket, It's not going to do much if anything to harm MS's bottom line if it fails. At any rate, it won't make a profit right away, but over time it will. Anybody with a rudementary knowlewge of business knows that. Andthen lets not forget, this is also set up to be a huge contendor next gen if it works. So even if they lose money this gen, nexty gen it will assuradly bring a profit. A really good example of this is the origional Xbox, I don't think it ever made a profit but it set MS up nicely for this gen.