Late in the year Microsoft had a Modern Warfare 2 bundle and had a price for the Elite, in a desperation attempt to hurt Sony, before the Slim took off. They also had the $100 rebate at Wal-Mart, around the time of the MW2 bundle.

Improving by less than 1% when you've got all that is not a plus.

The normal/average is more like 20 - 25 million. The 360 has sold 39 million. For a second place console that's far above average.

From what I can assume; each 360 consoles is sold at a profit, software sales are strong, and Xbox Live generates a ton of money. I think its possible the 360 will hit 70 million by the end. So yeah, I think its doing great.

If I was working for MS, and at the price it is at currently I would expect 360 to be selling a lot more than it currently is. Yes I would be happy with US sales, but everywhere else, very unhappy as it's the cheapest console available in Others yet lagging behind both it's competitors. In Japan... well...

Marketshare-wise MS had a year head-start, 360 has been cheaper than it's HD competitor throughout the gen and is cheaper than the Wii now. They've managed to get some of the best devs and exclusive software for their system. Things are good now, but they could have been better. Really, they should have done better.

Software-wise, yes MS are probably ecstatic.

Profit-wise, the money they're making is a positive sign, but it has yet to make a full return on the investment at the start of the gen (including the RRoD fiasco). Until that happens, I think "doing average" is the nicest way of putting it.

As for Sony... well, to put it nicely, they're worse.

This is a joke, right?  You do realize that the 360 has a 3.2 GHz Tricore cpu, right?  It may have had that in '05, but PC users didn't have them until '08.  It was way ahead of the curve at the time of release.  However, now that Tri-cores have been out for awhile they still cost $70-80 at the low end (weaker than the 360's cpu, also) so it'd be a smoking hot deal is MS was getting that for $40, let along a GPU and motherboard to go with it. Even if you're right on the rest you're still a good $60 or more off.

And let's look at those numbers, shall we?

$10 for a DVD player, fine.  Makes sense.

$10 for a controller (since the HDD is supposedly $30) sounds low to me.

$40 for a mobo, gpu, memory (but no CPU, since there's really no way it's that cheap) sounds low but believable

$20 for the case, wireless for the controllers, psu, cords, fans, etc also sounds way low.

Chances are it's more like $20 for each controller, $40 for the CPU, $50 for the mobo/GPU/RAM/wireless, $20 for the case+fan, $10 for all the cords, and $20+ for shipping and handling.

You're totally neglecting the fact that the parts have to be shipped to them in the first place, then the complete product is moved to a warehouse, then it's transported internationally to other warehouses, then to the retailer's warehouses, then the retail stores.  You also forgot it has to come in a box and that it needs packing materials so it's not damaged and they also pay insurance when shipping since it's going to be a cold day in hell before they let themselves be out that kind of money on a fluke accident.

Also, you've got labor costs.  Where are management fees?  How do you account for the fact that, given enough time, hardware begins to become more expensive to produce rather continuing to get cheaper?  Right now the GDDR3 in the 360 is more expensive than an equivalent GDDR5 to produce due to the materials used, not cheaper.  The GPU probably suffers from the same issue, too.  And how about defective hardware sent back by retailers at MS's cost?

No, I no longer need to ask if it's a joke, but why you would make such a joke.  The XBox360 without a harddrive is barely profitable, if at all.  They're sure to make fair gains with the Elite, but not the arcade.  Your claims aren't just utterly without basis, since neither of us knows exactly wat MS pays, but they are completely ignorant of the realities of hardware manufacture.  On top of that you're ignoring a lot of aspects that get factored into the cost (several I didn't even bother to mention) of each machine.

If I was working for MS, I'd be happy that the 360 is far more successful than the predecessor and will continue to be for years to come. The 360 is still pretty expensive in my opinion, most consoles aren't $200 - $300 after 4 years on the market. With that said I think its selling fine for the price.

Also, if you personally aren't happy with the 360 sales you should consider the two major competitors the 360 has to deal with. The Wii is breaking records and the PS3 is wasting god knows how much just so people will buy it. With that considered the 360 is going strong.

If MS really wanted to boost hardware sales in all regions that could just lower the price further and lose a ton of money. That has been Sony's strategy and its worked well for moving consoles. Like I said, Sony is on damage control and doing whatever it takes to keep the brand from dying.

The "profit-wise" thing, do we even know how much money the 360 has generated? I mean all the hardware, software, Xbox Live, etc.? I'd like to see those numbers if they exist.

Personally like to see both consoles up. Its kind of funny how its always MS vs Sony when the eal target should be the WII. I have a WII and nothing personnel I never play it. I just want to make sure next gen we have a few great systems with games for hardcore gamers, and both SOny and MS have those games.

The dvd components are actually much less. You can get a chassied SATA drive with many more components for $10 today. If retail is $10 what did it actually cost?

Silicon is currently about 1/2 the price it was in '07. It was 1/3 of the price back in March/April '09. Wafers are even cheaper thanks to the recession and increase competition.

The controller is plastic with a little bit of silicon, some led's and a wireless chip. The chip can be had from ADI for about $2-3 in bulk. TI, Linear and now MCHP also sells similar chips so tons of competition. Its even cheaper if you go to chinese manufaturers. The integration is done in a facory line designed specifically for the controller. Your only huge cost is set up and changes therein. Controllers never really change design so they progressively get cheaper over time. Chances are, controller now cost less than $10 to make not counting werehousing, and labor.

Mobo is a little more complex because it changes in design more often. Again your biggest cost is line setup and testing. Wafers are now extremely cheap and so are electronic components so once you nail it, the price declines rapidly over time.

GPU is going to be very cheap. So is memory. All you are buying is the chip that you are soldering onto your mobo above. At most, the GPU is probably $10 and memory is probably less than $3 for the raw 512 chip/s. The price doesnt go up because the manufacturing line is never shut down and your only fluctuation is the price of materials and labor. Prices only change if they are buying from the open market but console makers generally stick to one or two long term fab contracts.

I will give you the CPU argument but again, the price should be consistently decreasing. I cant imagine the CPU being more than $20 today.