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Forums - Sales Discussion - Profit Numbers: Nintendo, Sony (Game Segment) and Microsoft (EDD Segment)

Bitmap Frogs on 17 March 2009
Alby_da_Wolf said:
Bitmap Frogs said:

That episode won an Emmy, by the way. Always in everyone's top 5 episodes, a true classic.

Anyways, you were implying MS was using the overhead expenses to hide X360 related losses, which is kind of conspirational-ly. Sony also has overhead expenses, Nintendo has overhead expenses. Assuming just because it is Microsoft it must be doing something fishy falls within the realms of tin-foil hattery.

 

Fishy not really, a little bit reticent and less than completely transparent, but within legal limits, yes. It's cosmetics, we know many companies do it, pretending only MS doesn't would be quite naïve.

Edit: about bolded part: yes, they have, but MS EDD division including a lot of heterogeneous things added to separate overhead expenses including in a big cauldron legal expenses, settlements and fines, R&D, support and service costs, etc makes a lot more difficult to tell what's profiting and what's not inside EDD itself. Conspiration theory would be suggesting some outlandish explanation to facts, and I'm not doing it, but facts remain, and they are that we can't tell for sure what's producing losses inside EDD, as we know that SW retail versions produce profits, Win CE/Mobile probably too, at last, and keyboard and mice too.

 

That's totally off-topic, you were implying MS was hiding EDD expenses within the "overhead" category. 

If you want to change the subject towards what might be hiding inside the EDD, it's beaten to death. The grim truth is no one knows, except Microsoft. From the outside the outlook of the EDD isn't that good... the Zune is a disaster, Windows Mobile is probably losing money (we know how much they make because we have pretty good figures for the cellphone market), obviously Surface, Sphere and whatever crackpot research they are doing its losing money too. The only potentially profitable ventures are their mice, keyboards and the 360.

The only unknown factor is MS statement that the division "handles" and "is responsible for" retail sales for Windows and Office, which probably means the EDD handles the sales (to unify their retailer relationships) while the money goes to the Windows and Office divisions. But we don't know, for sure.

Anyways, while the X360's numbers aren't in plain sight, considering what's in the division and the turnover in numbers (from huge losses to modest profits) which has happened in the same timeframe on which the X360 took off, either they are selling astronomical amounts of keyboards or the 360 has turned a corner.

 





Current-gen game collection uploaded on the profile, full of win and good games; also most of my PC games. Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts 1982-2008 (Requiescat In Pace).

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liquidninja on 17 March 2009

*Update*

  • Added Sega's Numbers from 1989 - 2001 (thanks very much to BKK's findings)
  • Changed Chart names
  • Made post clearer looking


BKK2 on 17 March 2009

Nice work!



gergroy on 17 March 2009

thats crazy, Sega only had 2 bad years and called it quits? They must of been spending money like crazy on other stuff.



Alby_da_Wolf on 17 March 2009
Bitmap Frogs said:
Alby_da_Wolf said:
Bitmap Frogs said:

That episode won an Emmy, by the way. Always in everyone's top 5 episodes, a true classic.

Anyways, you were implying MS was using the overhead expenses to hide X360 related losses, which is kind of conspirational-ly. Sony also has overhead expenses, Nintendo has overhead expenses. Assuming just because it is Microsoft it must be doing something fishy falls within the realms of tin-foil hattery.

 

Fishy not really, a little bit reticent and less than completely transparent, but within legal limits, yes. It's cosmetics, we know many companies do it, pretending only MS doesn't would be quite naïve.

Edit: about bolded part: yes, they have, but MS EDD division including a lot of heterogeneous things added to separate overhead expenses including in a big cauldron legal expenses, settlements and fines, R&D, support and service costs, etc makes a lot more difficult to tell what's profiting and what's not inside EDD itself. Conspiration theory would be suggesting some outlandish explanation to facts, and I'm not doing it, but facts remain, and they are that we can't tell for sure what's producing losses inside EDD, as we know that SW retail versions produce profits, Win CE/Mobile probably too, at last, and keyboard and mice too.

 

That's totally off-topic, you were implying MS was hiding EDD expenses within the "overhead" category. 

If you want to change the subject towards what might be hiding inside the EDD, it's beaten to death. The grim truth is no one knows, except Microsoft. From the outside the outlook of the EDD isn't that good... the Zune is a disaster, Windows Mobile is probably losing money (we know how much they make because we have pretty good figures for the cellphone market), obviously Surface, Sphere and whatever crackpot research they are doing its losing money too. The only potentially profitable ventures are their mice, keyboards and the 360.

The only unknown factor is MS statement that the division "handles" and "is responsible for" retail sales for Windows and Office, which probably means the EDD handles the sales (to unify their retailer relationships) while the money goes to the Windows and Office divisions. But we don't know, for sure.

Anyways, while the X360's numbers aren't in plain sight, considering what's in the division and the turnover in numbers (from huge losses to modest profits) which has happened in the same timeframe on which the X360 took off, either they are selling astronomical amounts of keyboards or the 360 has turned a corner.

 

"Hiding" would be a lie, as MS openly states that "Corporate level activity" includes R&D and support, so it isn't by any means hiding the fact (but this fact makes things less clear).

About EDD, well, I incorrectly understood that you didn't think too it's difficult to precisely know how things go inside it. Anyway your theory is as good as mine, very much depends on Win Mobile earning or losing (Win CE should be profiting, but Win Mobile in the past lost a lot and results have always been quite disappointing compared to MS' efforts).

About XB360, in case it's profiting as a whole, it's quite likely that XBL is profiting, high end XB360 models are profiting too or at least breaking even, first party games and royalties are giving huge profits without any doubt and Arcade is losing.



Stwike him, Centuwion. Stwike him vewy wuffly! (Pontius Pilate, "Life of Brian")
A fart without stink is like a sky without stars.
TGS, Third Grade Shooter: brand new genre invented by Kevin Butler exclusively for Natal WiiToo Kinect. PEW! PEW-PEW-PEW!   


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Munkeh111 on 17 March 2009

Very interesting, Sony did not actually make that much money during their glory eras



Bitmap Frogs on 17 March 2009
Alby_da_Wolf said:
Bitmap Frogs said:

That's totally off-topic, you were implying MS was hiding EDD expenses within the "overhead" category. 

If you want to change the subject towards what might be hiding inside the EDD, it's beaten to death. The grim truth is no one knows, except Microsoft. From the outside the outlook of the EDD isn't that good... the Zune is a disaster, Windows Mobile is probably losing money (we know how much they make because we have pretty good figures for the cellphone market), obviously Surface, Sphere and whatever crackpot research they are doing its losing money too. The only potentially profitable ventures are their mice, keyboards and the 360.

The only unknown factor is MS statement that the division "handles" and "is responsible for" retail sales for Windows and Office, which probably means the EDD handles the sales (to unify their retailer relationships) while the money goes to the Windows and Office divisions. But we don't know, for sure.

Anyways, while the X360's numbers aren't in plain sight, considering what's in the division and the turnover in numbers (from huge losses to modest profits) which has happened in the same timeframe on which the X360 took off, either they are selling astronomical amounts of keyboards or the 360 has turned a corner.

 

"Hiding" would be a lie, as MS openly states that "Corporate level activity" includes R&D and support, so it isn't by any means hiding the fact (but this fact makes things less clear).

About EDD, well, I incorrectly understood that you didn't think too it's difficult to precisely know how things go inside it. Anyway your theory is as good as mine, very much depends on Win Mobile earning or losing (Win CE should be profiting, but Win Mobile in the past lost a lot and results have always been quite disappointing compared to MS' efforts).

About XB360, in case it's profiting as a whole, it's quite likely that XBL is profiting, high end XB360 models are profiting too or at least breaking even, first party games and royalties are giving huge profits without any doubt and Arcade is losing.

 

It's just Microsoft being over-cautious in their finantials. They get a lot of government scrutiny.

Win Mobile is a sink. I lurk cellphone forums and the cellphone market has some very good public numbers. We know how many WinMo cellphones are shipped and well, it doesn't add up.

By the way, why should the Arcade lose money? The 360 is over three years old, the silicon has been shrunk, yields have increased dramatically, it has no HDD, headset nor anything... what's your reasoning behind that.

 





Current-gen game collection uploaded on the profile, full of win and good games; also most of my PC games. Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts 1982-2008 (Requiescat In Pace).

Alby_da_Wolf on 17 March 2009
Bitmap Frogs said:
Alby_da_Wolf said:
Bitmap Frogs said:

That's totally off-topic, you were implying MS was hiding EDD expenses within the "overhead" category. 

If you want to change the subject towards what might be hiding inside the EDD, it's beaten to death. The grim truth is no one knows, except Microsoft. From the outside the outlook of the EDD isn't that good... the Zune is a disaster, Windows Mobile is probably losing money (we know how much they make because we have pretty good figures for the cellphone market), obviously Surface, Sphere and whatever crackpot research they are doing its losing money too. The only potentially profitable ventures are their mice, keyboards and the 360.

The only unknown factor is MS statement that the division "handles" and "is responsible for" retail sales for Windows and Office, which probably means the EDD handles the sales (to unify their retailer relationships) while the money goes to the Windows and Office divisions. But we don't know, for sure.

Anyways, while the X360's numbers aren't in plain sight, considering what's in the division and the turnover in numbers (from huge losses to modest profits) which has happened in the same timeframe on which the X360 took off, either they are selling astronomical amounts of keyboards or the 360 has turned a corner.

 

"Hiding" would be a lie, as MS openly states that "Corporate level activity" includes R&D and support, so it isn't by any means hiding the fact (but this fact makes things less clear).

About EDD, well, I incorrectly understood that you didn't think too it's difficult to precisely know how things go inside it. Anyway your theory is as good as mine, very much depends on Win Mobile earning or losing (Win CE should be profiting, but Win Mobile in the past lost a lot and results have always been quite disappointing compared to MS' efforts).

About XB360, in case it's profiting as a whole, it's quite likely that XBL is profiting, high end XB360 models are profiting too or at least breaking even, first party games and royalties are giving huge profits without any doubt and Arcade is losing.

 

It's just Microsoft being over-cautious in their finantials. They get a lot of government scrutiny.

Win Mobile is a sink. I lurk cellphone forums and the cellphone market has some very good public numbers. We know how many WinMo cellphones are shipped and well, it doesn't add up.

By the way, why should the Arcade lose money? The 360 is over three years old, the silicon has been shrunk, yields have increased dramatically, it has no HDD, headset nor anything... what's your reasoning behind that.

 

Very rough calculation: if PS3 is breaking even at $400, subtracting HDD cost, cost difference between Cell and Xenon, cost difference between BD and DVD, and all other smaller differences, do you think we get a sum smaller than $200? BD drives are quite cheap now, an 80GB HDD is cheap too, Cell has already been produced in more than 20 million units, while Xenon almost 30 million, and it's simpler, so we know is cheaper than Cell, but not enormously cheaper. OTOH the price difference between Pro and Arcade is high enough, compared to the additional equipment, to make Pro break even or even profit a little bit.

 



Stwike him, Centuwion. Stwike him vewy wuffly! (Pontius Pilate, "Life of Brian")
A fart without stink is like a sky without stars.
TGS, Third Grade Shooter: brand new genre invented by Kevin Butler exclusively for Natal WiiToo Kinect. PEW! PEW-PEW-PEW!   


misterd on 17 March 2009
lapsed_gamer said:
What I find incredible is that Nintendo posted profits higher than Playstation in all years other than 2003 despite "losing" the generation.

While Nintendo may have lost the home console generation last time, they still dominated the hand held market, and most of their first party games still did very well.

 



Bitmap Frogs on 17 March 2009
Alby_da_Wolf said:

Very rough calculation: if PS3 is breaking even at $400, subtracting HDD cost, cost difference between Cell and Xenon, cost difference between BD and DVD, and all other smaller differences, do you think we get a sum smaller than $200? BD drives are quite cheap now, an 80GB HDD is cheap too, Cell has already been produced in more than 20 million units, while Xenon almost 30 million, and it's simpler, so we know is cheaper than Cell, but not enormously cheaper. OTOH the price difference between Pro and Arcade is high enough, compared to the additional equipment, to make Pro break even or even profit a little bit.

 

 

Your post is full of misconceptions.

You don't know how much all those components in the ps3 cost. Therefore you can't take that as a basis for your calculation.

In fact, you are ignoring associated costs, manufacturing costs, yields, and other unknown/unforeseen costs.

I call your whole post uninformed speculation, and I am being generous. You basically want to believe the Arcade is losing money.





Current-gen game collection uploaded on the profile, full of win and good games; also most of my PC games. Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts 1982-2008 (Requiescat In Pace).