saving money is still saving money no matter how you say it, if i didnt have an xbox i would have bought this instead, a console alone for the same price.

Their attach rate is bigger than the 360. This is about Microsoft doing some chest-thumping and making more bad decisions. This will turn the loyal against them in an effort to snag the casual gamer ( or gamers on the fence).
Seems like little gain for how much M$ will lose. But hey, Im just one gamer. Maybe others dont feel as jilted.

aint nobody got time for dat

Promotional deal in the U.S.
Promotional deal + Price cut for the U.K.

So yes there has been a price cut, just not everywhere...yet.

But Titanfall isn't a 'must have' game. We could go into the semantics that every game is must have for somebody, but overall this game is not a 'must have' from the minds of the average gamer.

..and yes I played the beta on PC and it wasn't a must have. A nice game with some fun moments...sure. A game I might pick up, definitely a possibility. A game that I must have...no. A game that people need to spend $499 or $499+ the game (if they can't get the bundle) to play when many of them have options of paying $60 for a 360 version, or $60 for a more advanced PC version? No.

I'm sure it'll sell millions of copies, and it has a chance for a bright future with some sane revisions in future iterations, but right now, no, it isn't a must have.

Also we can get into more semantics about this being a next-gen game. It's on a next-gen console, so is it a next-gen game? Perhaps. But by any metric of what the game does, it is not a 'next-gen' game from that perspective. The 360 version isn't cut down in anyway, and if the rumors are to be believed the 360 version isn't that much of a step below the XBox One version. We'll see. The source engine predates the Xbox 360 even. It's from 2004.

That said, I agree with you that it is a positive business decision. But not nearly as positive that they need. If you're backtracking during a marathon, starting to go forward IS POSITIVE, but merely going forward won't change the results of a marathon. This is the part to realize. It's positive, but it needs to be realized that it is only a positive drop in a big bucket. Not realizing this would be a crucial mistake by Microsoft or anybody.

They need a lot more then bundling in Titanfall to make the gaming public forget about the higher price, poorer specs, and lack of 1st party development compared to their competitor that we will see for at least the next 2-3 years.

Even with Titanfall, the average gamer still sees a cheaper and more powerful product that they can buy in the PS4, and many of them will have a 360 or PC and can play Titanfall anyways. (and no again because it's a Source engine game, this game is the 'next-gen' game that is the easiest for any older or lower spec PC to run.)

Profit is malleable. It all depends on how many they make versus how many they sell. If they have a million units sitting on the shelves not getting refreshed fast, and production is above that, then those numbers we initially had are useless. They were always estimates about estimates anyways.

Also all those costs are based on a specific level of production. Usually the less you sell and you have to slowdown production, the more the units will cost. Because even though some cost reduction occurs from the top line when lowering production, it usually actually INCREASES the cost per unit because you lose economies of scale.

Not to mention they signed deals with ATI, Foxconn, and everyone else that has a part inside the XB1 or constructing it, and it specifies certain levels of production. If they need to cut that down, yes there will be savings, but they may be required to pay a much higher price per unit because the guaranteed a certain level of production for a specific time period. So while I don't think this has quite impacted Microsoft, it no doubt has impacted Nintendo and the Wii U. This part would be realized as a later cost by Microsoft if sales continue to slump and go below any threshold in the contracts.

We also don't know what sort of fuzzy math those numbers were arrived at. Did they take into account just the COGS (cost of goods sold) or do they include all the amortized R&D costs for Kinect2, the cloud, and the redesign of the controller?

Remember folks they would need $100 million dollars in PROFIT just to roughly pay off the R&D costs of the controller. AT $500, that's 200,000 consoles just in revenue. But revenues ARE NOT profits.

If they make $10 profit per console, because only profit pays off R&D, then that would mean they need to sell 10 million units just to pay off the cost to redesign the controller. If they make $50 profit per console, then just 2 million...either way, they need to sell a ton of units just to pay off the R&D, that is generally omitted from all console profit/loss per console breakdown. But this number is MUCH HIGHER for Xbox compared to PS4, because Sony didn't have obscene Kinect R&D costs, nor did they spend $100 million on the DS4.

Remember folks costs are costs as soon as you sink money into making the console, it is only recouped once sold, which actually isn't to the consumer, but to the outlets they actually sell the console to. The Walmarts, the amazon's, the best buys, gamestops, etc.

So this also isn't always broken down in an easy way to understand in financial statements, because much of these costs have been paid for years, and some of these costs won't be realized until a certain timeframe or event has or hasn't happened.

But again, if these outlets are sitting on a million unsold units at any given time, they aren't buying more. So Microsoft will have the money like those are sold, but that's the last bit of obfuscation rabbit they can pull out of their hat. They can't fudge the numbers any more then how many these outlets have bought in total from them.

Now that these outlets are saturated with consoles, and have been for months, what they need to produce to keep up with demand and what THAT costs, when including the R&D costs, would give you a much more accurate figure of if they are making or losing money per console.

Of course you also have to take into account all employee overhead, advertising costs, any current R&D, and game development costs, dev starting/acquisition costs, promotional deals, etc to get a full accounting of whether or not MS is making a profit with Xbox One section of the Xbox division. Oh and don't forget all the costs associated with making their own CPU for the Kinect, and I can't remember if they bought or created that company..but those costs too!

Because the true measure of whether or not Microsoft is making money on the XB1, at least until the 360 is gone, is what all these costs within the entire Xbox division are for the Xbox ONE system and how much they are bringing in through selling the system, peripheral, and game sales.

Also one should realize how much these numbers would change if they added a Kinectless SKU.