If your really believe that Sony have absolutely nothing to do with the downfall of Sega then you are more ignorant then I am. Your bias, I'm bias we are same breed.

Please don't quote because you are annoying. You are one of the only TWO people I don't like on this site. Thanks.

Well even early on it seemed like MS was primarily looking to diversify. Its clear MS didn't step in expecting big profits and continued on even after huge losses on the original Xbox. It was probably the biggest financial disaster in the industry... until PS3 rolled around.

I think most of us knew Sony before the Playstation, but putting out a game console gave them a cult following. MS accomplished the same thing with gamers via the Xbox.

Either way, it looks like the Xbox brand really has become a financially worthwhile endeavor. I presume the most profitable aspect of Xbox is those Live memberships. I've heard guesstimates as high as 20 million Gold members. If that's true, that's a nice chunk of change.

He's right - the EDD department profits like $500m - $1b a year now. Off the top of my head we know just from Xbox stuff it has this much revenue in good years now:

15m * $200 for consoles after retailers get their cut - $3b in revenue

20m * $40 for Microsoft games after discounts and retailers get their cut - $800m

Accessories (Kinect, Controllers) - $300m?

130m * $8 - Royalties on non-Microsoft games - $1.04b / $1040m

Live revenue / XBLA royatlies / DLC Royalties / game advertisements - $500m

I'm being generous on some of this stuff - hw & sw is way down from these levels now - but it comes out to $5.6b in Xbox revenue in a good year, with typically less than $1b in profit. It's a lot of work for a small of amount of money to Microsoft.

Not surprising. MS viewed the Xbox as a 20 year investment and was more than willing to eat some losses to get it off the ground, starting with the multiple billions they spent making Live. I don't think in their wildest dreams they thought they'd have this much success this generation and make so much money on Live and the Xbox.

Where did I said that?  It wasn't even implied. Please do not put words into my mouth just because I present a valid point backed by facts that you cannot counter without twisting.  Yes, I'd be annoyed as well if I jumped the gun and someone called me out on it.  Actually, I would not be annoyed because I admit to my mistakes and acknowledge them.  And it wasn't a mistake that I just quoted you.  My right, my choice.  You chose to be annoyed.  it's all you, baby.

You gotta relax son. You're a PS guy, I'm a Ninty/Sega/MS guy. When we look at gaming there nothing but bias between us so I don't know why you are so upset about my opinion that Sony had a big hand in the downfall of Sega.

We both need to stop derailing the thread. If you got anything else to say just write on my wall.

To be honest it seems like no one is really making a lot of money off video games right now, lol.

Not even Nintendo.

Rising development costs, big hardware losses, consumer apathy, attention shifting to smartphones/tablets as the "must have" tech gadgets ... it's all hurting the business.

Seems like they are making a lot of money to me. Maybe this guy is jealous he is not around for the payday. Most likely.

It's a good read. They could have worked together more. Although sometimes consumers win as in the PS3/X360 war, and sometimes the lose and the HD DVD/Blu-ray (Streaming won) war.

Although, I would have enjoy that one notorious comment from the Sony executive that "in so many years, we will have all games, and none will be made for Windows!" or something to that effect.

Where did you include the 1 billion USD / year from XBL fees?

Anyway, MS just posted a 600 million USD profit for the EDD in the past 3 months. Their profits vary from 800 million to 1 billion over the past 3 years.... How do you come to the conclusion, it is not worth it?

1 billion in profit is too much work for small amount of money... Heck, that is like 8 times the profit Nintendo made in the past 9 months. Not talking about other products benefit from Xbox / Live / Kinect.

And this guy left MS 10 years ago. XBL just started back then and looked like this.

Just to give you an idea, how the situation was when he left.