So you think they have it under their pillow?

arguing with a guy on the internet, who claims to be a hedge fund manager about business ethics is even better than the media markt guy!

There are 2 different views on the Business ethics thing.
One group of people say: Businesses need to make money. That is it. Businesses don't need ethics as long as the people running the company have them.
The other group says: Businesses need to make money, but should not forget their role in the society / community. CSR is a big part of it.

And Microsoft belongs to the 2nd one.

And your hardcore / true gamers rant was just painful to read, when you actually know what business ethics means. I doubt you do.
Hint: Not catering to the hardcore gamer you defined by yourself has not made its way in the social studies yet.

Oh and to prove you wrong AGAIN:

Top 10 PS3 games:

1. GTA V
2. CoD MW3
3. CoD Black Ops
4. CoD Black Ops II
5. GT 5
6. CoD MW2
7. GTA IV
8. CoD Ghosts
9. Fifa 13
10. Battlefield 3

CoD ranks higher on the PS3 charts than on the Xbox 360 charts. But I can calm you down: This does not mean Sony has no business ethics.

MS are a smart business. They don't make that money and then waste it. There's a reason why the hardware/xbox division was still profitable even when they launched a brand new console.

They will not sell X1 at a loss unless sales become bad, and that is the worst case scenario. They are much more likely to start selling a Kinect-less bundle first. and if that doesn't help sales, then they will sell it at a loss. 

Debatable. While Microsoft have more room for cuts, Sony have the more favorable pricepoint that they will be able to maintain.

Look at the Wii and how long it stayed at $250 for the best example here. While Microsoft may be forced to cut/add value 12 months down the line, Sony will likely be sitting happy at current pricing into late 2015 (if not later). Assuming they will be making money on every PS4 sold pretty damn soon, this is good for them.

Arguably theyre in a better position HW-wise, until MS decide to do a Kinectless bundle that is.

While they are posting record profits I dont think MS will change anything. And Xbox is still profitable since 2008. Not 1 year with non profit since then. I reckon they are happy.

While what you said may be true, why do you care so much? do you own stock in microsoft? I dont undersand why you are so happy MS is getting rich for charging and extra $100 for what IMO is an inferior console.  

I had a small nagging feeling glancing over the numbers. And here is the key question asked at the investor meeting:

Gregg Moskowitz - Cowen & Company
Amy, despite the healthy gross margins, your Xbox platform revenue grew $1.2 billion year over year, but your related cost of goods sold went up by $1.6 billion. And I realize there may be additional costs related to launch, but just wondering if you could talk to expected profitability levels for Xbox for the balance of fiscal ’14.

So the difference between revenue and cost of goods is MINUS $400mio. Where does that minus come from other than from XBox One ? Here's the q&a answer:

Amy Hood - Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President
We’ll continue to be in launch mode for Xbox One, especially many people are excited about the launch of Titanfall in March, and we’ll continue to add and expand markets over the course of the year. So I would continue to think about our investment in being the leading next-generation console as certainly extending.

"XBox One launch mode" translation. We are currently losing money on the XBox One...

Firstly, dont bite at the obvious bait from 2008ProchargedGT.

Now thats out of the way.  

Do you seriously think that Microsoft will be able to hold this pricepoint for over a Year without seeing significant losses in marketshare to both Sony and Nintendo?

Making a ton of money might be good for the books, but its not gonna do anything substantial for your platform when you lose exclusives/support because of sales performance. A $500 console isnt going to survive in the long term when there are options that cost far less that do just as much, if not more for the target audience. Its already starting to lag massively behind in Europe, before we hit a real baseline for sales.

They got away with not doing a mass pricecut with the 360 for a few reasons.

a) Because the primary competition, PS3, was always the more expensive console which means the very similar 360 was a better option for the mass market.
b) Because they launched early into the market and controlled a large chunk of marketshare from the off, meaning devs couldnt afford to miss out on the sales potential available on the platform and thus maintaining support throughout the lifespan of the console.
c) Because Kinect. Kinect prolonged the 360's lifespan by 2-3 Years. On Kinect Year the 360 was up YoY by over 30% and flat the Year after. Before Kinect we saw a drop of almost 10%.

With the Xbox One things arent so clear cut as they were with the 360. Microsoft arent gonna have the same luxuries and the competition this time out is far greater.

@ bolded:

No.

Xbox Revenue increased 1.2 billion USD YOY.
cost of goods sold increaesd 1.6 billion USD YOY.

This does not mean that the difference between revenue and cost of goods is minus 400 million.

The EDD posted a 600 million USD profit last year.

Xbox One launch mode means: We are profitable with the Xbox One, but as you can imagine such a launch is expensive and requires lots of marketing, logistics and distribution. Of course this will take a while.

Fahre jetzt Bundesliga gucken. Auf geht's Gladbach... naja... wohl eher nicht.

This