Damage control?

There are some pretty meaningful things you get out of revenue:

1) Revenue is perfect for comparisons between the 360 and the PS3 because dev costs for both platforms will be more or less equal (Ubisoft said porting from one to another cost 10% of the original dev costs)

2) Revenue tells us how much money customers are willing to spend and are spending on the different platforms. So its a good measure of platform importance.

3) Revenue is a good measure about the ressources a company puts into an area. Companies are not stupid after all.

So no definitely not meaningless.

FishyJoe said: Loud_Hot_White_Box said: Garcian Smith said: As others have already pointed out: Revenue != profit.   The revenue statistics still irk people plenty well enough. I'm liking that. Plus, you conflate revenue for 3rd parties with profit for Sony.  Put another way, you strangely feel a need to bring up profit (apparently for Sony, right?) when the thread is about 3rd party revenue.   Success is determined by profits not revenue. If we judged success by revenue, GM would be a thriving company.

well toyota it kicking their ass :)

japanese companies ftw! =)

 

Lafiel said: @ Garcian Smith and FishyJoe ) as a non-stockholder I prefer high revenues with small (but positive) profits, because that means many people have work and the money doesn't just run into the arms of already rich stockholders, who get even richer and BTW in my humble opinion a company is "successful" if it manages to employ as many people as possible with their revenue (and ofcourse still are profitable)

 

I disagree with this strongly, not just on a factual basis but on a moral basis as well.

On a factual basis, not only rich people own stocks. Sometimes a significant portion of employees income is derived from stock options.

On a moral basis, a publicly traded company has a responsibility to maximize profits for it's shareholders, not employ as many people as possible. Why would anyone invest money if they didn't believe the company wasn't working first and foremost for the shareholders? These are businesses, not charities.

What you're describing is a non-profit company, not a publicly traded business.

this is good thing for everyone ,, why are u arguing so much? :P

@ FishyJoe )

I didn't expect you to agree with me, for I know you are one of the users here with the most neoliberal views (and a stockholder), but I just wanted to make clear, that there is no definite definition of what "success" is.
Shareholder value isn't the only way to lead a company and in my opinion it isn't the best way either (although you will likely disagree).

This socialistic approach sounds nice but simply doesn't work. In socialistic countries its easy to do a job that would need 100 people with the right tools with 1000 people.

The problem is the country as a whole isn't better off that way because not more value is generated and the 900 people do not have the option to do something sensible and generate value as well.

Even if the 900 people have no possibility to get a job or create a business on their own, the responsibility to care for them is definitely not with the company but for example with the government, that can use taxation to redistribute the generated value of the 100 people who do the job.

Luckily in most capitalistic countries a big part of the 900 people do indeed find a sensible job or create one for themselves so increasing the value that is generated by the society.

Capitalism may be a really bad system but it is simply the best we have.

Well atleast PS3 has something going for it. But most of the EA stuff is off of sports games.

Shareholder value has one problem. It is very very often short-term. Investors want as much money as possible and do not care that they are destroying the chances of long-term success by cutting R&D spending, investment etc.
Because of that private-led companies are often very successful compared to their publicly traded brethren.

@ Kyros )

That's why I insisted on the company being profitable.
I think it's very healthy if about 10% of the revenue is profit.

profits of over 25%-50% or more on the other hand seem very unhealthy to me (depending on the size of the company)

Profit is good. Why is it part of this discussion? The OP was regarding the PS3 bringing in a majority of the Revenue for EA and Ubisoft. Where did they discuss that the profit is less on the PS3?

If anything this report plus the Konami and Namco information should dispell the notion that people buy the PS3 as a Blu-ray player.