"Mathematically, certainly, if you look at the original Xbox, it’s just true. The original Xbox lost, depending on who is doing the accounting, somewhere between $5 billion and $7 billion. I think of that as an investment, and everybody ultimately can think of that as an investment, because we know the end of this story. The end of this story is that the successor product made billions of dollars, even with the write-off, and has built an asset for Microsoft that’s worth billions of dollars by itself," Bach told GeekWire.

Full article here: http://www.examiner.com/article/former-xbox-head-says-original-xbox-lost-between-5-billion-and-7-billion

Worth it.

No pain, no gain...

I think we already knew this. Though, the 360 didn't make them billions. It made them lose money the 1st year or two. They may have broke even on the 360 by now, but it definitely didn't net them a profit of billions, overall. And given how the XBO is performing, I doubt they'll ever make a profit on the Xbox venture, as a whole. That's really the reason investors were so vocal about them just dropping it earlier this gen.

Yeah, that loss is well documented and it benefited them a whole lot during the 7th generation. The question is, how much of it will be worth after the 8th. Lets hope that they will manage to squeeze out one last generation before all of the manufacturers move on to something else.

XBL alone is a gold mine between sales revenue and advertising revenue... They more than likely covered XBOG 360 and are well set on the one looking at current numbers... XBox no matter how people want to shake it is a financial success so far for MS and will probably only get better and gain ground with time expending on different platform

and that investor rumor has to stop... There were one venture capital that is not even a top five shareholder with low influence and low key interest that wanted to split it... It's like taking seriously Kanye wanting to be president or god or whatever the fuck he wants to be these days... Nobody listen to them....

I don't see anybody talking about Sony number one shareholder openly and repeatedly wanting to split Sony in multiple division in particular the entertainment division from the hardware division taking him seriously.... And he has like god all mighty powers in comparaison to the less than 1%ter shareholder that remotely voiced maybe twice in the past the wish to split the XB division from MS...

It was their first gen, its not like they were going to take the industry by storm. They took a risk, and it payed on the long term.

New consoles don't have to achieve Ps1 numbers to be considered successful imo.

Playstation is just on another level.

I wish i had that money. But yeah i knew this already they lost a lot but it was worth it.

I would to see if the xbox brand (all three consoles altogether and all costs associated with it) turned a profit or not. If it did then by how much.

RROD though.