The #'s given were just for those 3 quarters of this years, not the 1st , 3rd or any other time.

Sorry for the error, here is Microsoft's official earnings statement from their website:

http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY07/earn_rel_q4_07.mspx#Balance

btw, I went back to microsoft's earnings statement from their site and what you see now, should be correct.

btw, why don't we just keep this thread as the generic thread for when the restl of the big 3's earnings come up?

Dallas it was a pretty good assessment.  I only have two significant gripes...

1) I'm not convinced Microsoft is profiting on the Xbox 360 hardware yet.  If they were profiting on the hardware, I think we would have seen a pricedrop because the software sales, online revenues and the rest could probably offset (a small ~$50 maybe) price drop.  I think Microsoft & Sony are in similar positions - they have excess stock of more expensive to produce SKUS, but because they have not sold out in the retail chain, the cheaper to produce (and potentially profitable) SKUs can't be introduced quite yet.

2) Microsoft reports two times a year - for the half year ending June 30, and for the half year ending December 31.  Nintendo & Sony report two times a year (I'm not 100% on this) - for the half year ending September 30, and for the half year ending March 31.  This thread just won't last that long.

When Microsoft sells another 1.4 million units or so, I expect them to become profitable on the hardware.  I'm expecting current sales ~60,000/week worldwide for another 4 weeks, then sales of like 80,000/week worldwide until Halo 3...at which point they should clear out the remaining old stock and start - finally - profiting on hardware by the end of the year (sometime in October?).  Once Halo 3, GTAIV, GHIII, Rockband etc die down, and Christmas sales die off completely to normal levels - in February/March 2008, 360 will have a price drop - at least that is how I see it - if Microsoft wants to make money on Xbox.

I think Dallas and Source both have good assessments about this all, yet I have one gripe:

There is a difference between making money, and turning an overall profit.

MS is five to six billion in the red with their gaming devision. It will be years at this point that the devision as a whole gets into the black on their own. If the devision as a whole continues to be an overall net drag to their stock, we won't be seeing them around for long in the console wars.

So here's what I'm getting from this: The analysts say that the XBOX is bad for the bottom line, and then tell people to buy the stock. Teehee. I guess that "buy" is in place of a "strong buy." I don't think the 360 will affect the bottom line much by July 08. I think MS wants to put this hardware problem behind them, and focus on profitability on the hardware, and selling more software, maybe coming close to breaking even next year.

Anybody surprised by this should not be posting on this site.

Those Goldman Sachs analysts know their stuff....they are generally considered to be the top rated investment bank in america.  I used to know a guy that worked for goldman several years ago as an investment banker.  He was around here coordinating hurricane katrina releif and i'd see him at my gym.

 Anyway, I think that the analyst means that MS should probably get a "sell" rating right now.  A more objective indication, besides the analyst's comments is the recent matter of the microsoft exec selling a very large amount of microsoft stock.  If the exec expected future profits and all that to be great, he would have kept the stock.  He seemed to think that MS will be taking a hit in the stock markets soon, and wanted to liquidate as much as possible, hence instead of doing a controlled sell he sold a LOT all at once which put the spotlight on him.