Like i mentioned, i'm very skeptical about the numbers shown. while i think some things look about right. i dont believe the PS1 which sold 100 mil units, and the PS2, 150 mil units didnt make more money than this. the whole reason Nintendo changed its strategy with the Wii is because it couldnt compete on that level.

i think Microsoft might think about pulling out after their next console. the reason they were so successful this gen is because of the terrible PS3 launch. when the PS4 and 720 come around Microsoft will be competing with a console launch like the PS Vita. Japan wont accept Microsoft. and it will not be easy for them in Europe. personally i think they have contributed much to this console generation and their online service is exlemplary. but three companies competing for the same market is too much, i cant see Microsoft having the patience to continue with another console if the next one cant solidify a stronger userbase.

personally what i can see happening is Sony and Microsoft waiting for Nintendo to release the Wii U, and then annoucing their consoles at a similar price point, with more powerful hardware. so in sense they wont let Nintendo do the same thing as the Wii, they will make a better effort in fighting Nintendo rather than each other.

wow sega weren't very big at all really

this chart is spot on

Xbox original took obscene losses. Profit for last 4 straight years though for MS so that's good.

Would be interesting to see how much money Microsoft Game Studios was bringing in before they decided to bring out the X-box and go to consoles. Lots of niche genre titles like Flight Sim as well some pretty decent franchises like Age of Empires were out before MS even entered the console scene.

@a203d

i don't know about the games per console ratio for ps1/2 but you shouldn't forget that these consoles had bigger pirating problems than any other consoles. in my school really noone except me (lol i failed) bought games for their consoles.

and you shouldn't forget that nintendo got a huge bunch of money for every sold cartridge of every company not only for their own games. the games did cost more in germany than the games cost nowaday because of that.

nice!! Nintendo going bankrupt in 5 years time sounds even more crazy now : P

Agree with your first paragraph...i dont think these numbers have any real meaning, you cant simply add up profits for a division and expect to get any sort of valuable or accurate information on the divisions current standing or strength.

I wouldnt attribute microsofts success this gen to sony's failings. Sure it got their foot in the door, but microsoft did the rest. People arent waiting for Sony anymore, they dropped the ball. Its up to Sony now to go and get people again. So i think if the 720 and ps4 release on equal terms, we will see a redo of this gen. This is all assuming no major surprises (in terms of industry game changes or company directions). If either company is succesful in getting the casual market then that would change everything.

With regards to the Wii u...im stil not sure on the thinking of Nintendo, but its stil early days. As it stand now though, it looks like they are going for the "hardcore " market. The problem with this is that they simply wont succeed unless they do something amazing and they havnt shown that something yet. Also it looks like they alienating the casual...but again its early days so we will see. Maybe Nintendo has a plan to get both.

.

Nintendo seems to be the only one that has a truly good constant business model.

Apart from the Sony figures all being 1 year early (see my previous post) they all look about right to me, these tables always change slightly because of various exchange rates.... but the history of all the numbers can be found here: http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/ar/Archive.html

Once you know what to look for it's all there.... just find a table that shows the operating income (or loss) for the different business segments of Sony, for most of the life of Playstation, it has pretty much had it's own segment called 'Game' from 1998 to 2009... before 1998 PS was part of the "electronics" segment but because end of year reports give comparisons to previous years we can easily date back the playstation operating income to the 1996 fiscal year.... given that the original playstation didn't sell gangbusters at launch in 1994 (though this was FY 95) the table is very likely missing a decent whack of losses due to the R&D done for the PS (although some of the R&D expenses will oddly enough be in Nintendo's fiscal reports given that the PS started out life as a SNES add-on)

You can also see similar (probably more correct, but also less up to date) tables here on NeoGAF:
http://neogaf.net/forum/showpost.php?p=19625436&postcount=90
and here on VGC... although liquidninja stopped updating it, and recent changes to the website code have seriously screwed up the table formatting so it's difficult to understand if you didn't see it as it was:
http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=57802%29.

liquidninja's table used to have the company names on, and also the rows of profits/loss for Sony/MS were all aligned to the bottom of the cells so that the dates lined up properly... the left columns are for Sony, then Nintendo, Sega and Microsoft.

----

To quell your scepticism some more, remember that the profits and losses for the consoles overlap each other, which can hide the achievements of a specific console. (the PS1 was still selling in the early 2000s for example, and the profits it made then will have been partially masked by the losses PS2 made early on)... when this topic came up back in 2008/9 I made an estimate based on these figures regarding what kind of profit the PS1, 2, P and 3 had made in their lives... it's only a rough guess but I thought over it's life the PS1 had probably made about $5-5.5 billion, and at the time the PS2 was around $3.5 billion (now I would guess it is petering out around $4.5 billion) I thought the PSP was probably about even back then (ie had made enough profit to negate early losses) and the PS3 had managed to negate most of the profit the PS1 and 2 had made, and was probably about -$8 billion.
I don't even want to have a guess at what the PSP and PS3 might be at now because Sony lumped the Game division in with other products for the financial statements, and the PSP Vita R&D is probably also eating into the profit the PSP and 3 are currently making too.