The first Xbox was not profitable at all. And every company that decides to join the videogame-industry will be in the red at first. That is pretty much granted. That is why there are just 3 companies participating. MS is one of the few companies worldwide, that is able to eat the losses for one generation. Well and there are R&D costs for the Xbox360. Imagine Samsung e.g. would join the Party. I don't know if Samsung could handle such a loss. Sony was smart to create a console in a time, when the industry was small.

And there is the Zune. The Zune never made a profit I guess. So posting a profit for the first time was a huge success. That means the Xbox360 was profitable and it covered the loss of the Zune as well. I have no idea about Windows Mobile, which is also included in EDD.

Sony owned a portion of the CD royalties (40%, as I recall, and Philips was 60%), but not DVD. Would that explain why their PS1 profits appear larger than PS2? Are those royalties reported in the same division?

Wow! Amazing to see the numbers. Sony has almost nothing to show for after selling 300 million consoles and portables over 12 years of dominance. Microsoft entered at a very tough time when Final Fantasy Grand Theft Auto and Metal Gear were huge! Now, they just have to fight off little games like Uncharted, ratchted and clank and Heavenly Sword. No game that Sony can ever announce can compensate for the loss of GTA 4 and Final Fantasy XIII exclusivity. NO GAME! Period

Thanks for these numbers

Poster above is a troll.

Troll much?

 Agree, Halo multiplat maybe :D

Well with Halo and Gears, MS has the two biggest franchises this gen so far (not including the Wii). GT5 is the only PS3-exclusive game that can challenge Halo and Gears saleswise. But the shootergenre is in MS hand, Killzone won't change that. Killzone won't touch Gears numbers. It has a good chance to be on par with L4D though.

Yeah...but you have to put these numbers in context...Nintendo is a game company...Sony is an electronics company, and M$ is a software company...games are the core business for Nintendo, whereas it was for Sony with the PS2....at this point...the 360 is still not a core for M$, but i think the next console will be a bit more so, after the success of the 360.

Where the hell did you get numbers for 96.

Sony didn't even have a games division yet.  They didn't until like 2000.

They had the Playstation 1 but that was grouped in with Semi-conductor sales etc and didn't lose money.

The PS1 was out before 2000; my 5501 series was dated November, 1997. But Sony was also around video games before the PS1, recall the history of the PS1 as the SNES-CD. In addition, there were a few Sony games released for systems like the SNES, so I'd say it's safe to say numbers go even further back than 96, though they're probably much harder to find; a small blip of another division, if you will.

Read what i said again.

The games division was a blip until 2000.

1996-1999 numbers were part of another division.