What's most shocking about this is how little Sony profited from the PS2. I would think it'd be like those beast Wii profits.

I was going to post asking about this. The thing sold like hotcakes, you'd think they'd profit pretty massively from it.

A lot of the money probably went to building studios and PS3 researching.

It doesn't really matter with the 360. Microsoft didn't go into the games division with the idea that each entry would exist in a vacuum. It was a long term investment strategy. Anyone claiming otherwise is trying to prove something by focusing on the smaller picture.

Microsoft spent millions on marketing, including buying one year exclusives. They spent massively to build the brand in Japan (that part was a failure). They were looking to purchase market share, basically, and it worked. I'm sure Microsoft is quite pleased with what they've done. The only real black mark is the billions lost over the RRoD.

Sony losses in this division are bit misleading, as they expected in profit from Blu-Ray in other areas. It was the gaming division that took the hit on paper, even though in reality the cost should be differed to the entire company.

During the PS2 era, Sony would drop the PS2's price as low as possible in order to kill the competition. They were more concerned with market share than profits. And their first party sales were weak as well.