The zealots seem to forget this side of the business. They seem to think that xbox live is so profitable, the software sales are so good, and the install base is pretty good. The truth is Microsoft still hasn't turned a profit from the xbox brand. Correct me if i'm wrong but according to this article microsoft has made $49 billion, but they spent $57.6 billion, so they are at a $8.6 billion lost.

According to this number the zealots claiming that the 360 is doing better than the xbox 1 are wrong. The xbox 1 was at a $4 billion lost. That would put the 360 at a $4.6 billion lost right now.

Zealots need to understand that Microsoft has no incentive to continue the xbox brand because it's hurting them. The PlayStation brand has helped Sony before; even though PS3 right now still at a lost they have been successful more than half of the time with PS1 and PS2. Sony has an incentive to keep the PlayStation brand alive long term.

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't you just another zealot?

Isn't it likely that your bias against the 360 would affect the information your mind retains?

And if both Microsoft and Sony have lost at least 4 billion this gen on their console business, why would Sony's past success have any part to play in their current position?

If both companies are both just about equal in marketshare and losses, why would you still count Microsoft out for next generation?

Also, if you're going to count something as irrelevant as Sony's past successes why don't you also include Microsoft's success with their OS platforms?

Edit: Also, investors are only pissed because they want to see their stock rise in value. If Microsoft is making heavy investments in order to receive larger returns later then that's up to Microsoft. The investors are constantly looking at their papers and stock tickers, hoping to see their stock go up a point or two.

The positive spin for MS would be that they aren't just looking after their shareholders. But others can definitely find a negative spin to this.

"Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't you just another zealot?"

I sense a school shooting in the making...

Hasn't Sony's gaming division also had continuous losses though?

I don't know at what point Sony's has seen a profit, was it with the PS2 later in its life-cycle?

*Edit: Can the two "disagrees" please provide links? I've just heard so many times, that because Sony sold the PS2 and now the PS3 at losses in the beginning, and the hardware problems with the PS2 initially, that they have always run a loss in their gaming division.

I wasn't one of the disagrees, but here you go.

http://www.sony.net/SonyInf...

Sony's financial data. Looks like Sony's game division took a loss the first year the PS2 was released, then didn't see a loss until they started investing in the PS3's development. Since the PS3 has been released the games division has seen 5 profitable quarters (about a third of the time it's been out), but like I mentioned above both Sony and analysts alike have attributed that to the appreciation of the yen versus the US$ and Euro. Not much you can do about that. And last August, Ken confirmed that the PS3 had been profitable as a platform for sometime.

Is that the Playstation brand actually does more for the company than the obvious sales of playstation hardware and games. It is also an avenue to push other technologies/products that Sony sells. The PS2 was not also a pretty good gaming machine but it pushed the dvd format and sales. The PS3 was used as the hammer that smashed HD-DVD leaving Blu-ray the only disc based high-def format. and until just recently was considered the best blu-ray player on the market, now superseded by the latest OPPO model.

Microsoft doesn't really have that strong a strategy concerning the Xbox brand. they are pushing Digital downloads of games and movies, not something that will directly effect their other divisions. The 360 doesn't help push Office or sales of Win7. I heard they were going to use XBL to sell music for the zune brand but, it looks like that never happened.

There is just more value in the PS brand for Sony then there is with the Xbox brand for MS.

If you really want to disagree, by all means do so. but, at least man up and reply to why you disagree with me.

The fact is that profit margins are not going to be anywhere what they are with Windows. Microsoft is not at a tipping point and it does not NEED to leave the consumer electronics market. But if your investors are used to seeing a 70% profit margin and you give them a 10% profit margin they are not going to be happy.

Again this is bigger then the games. Shares of Microsoft have dropped 50% since 2000 and many of the people running MS have their fortunes in that company. They are not only feeling pressure from investors to get the stock price back up but they are also feeling it from themselves.

It seems to me that Microsoft needs to focus itself on what it wants to do. They need to find a solid foundation in the gaming industry then focus on the mobile phone market. Integrate everything and you have a strong network of products all making themselves money. But not everything at once. They are too spread out and it has coast them.

At the moment that is what Sony is trying to do. They are integrating the PS3 with Bravia TVs and they are soon to integrate their phone with the PlayStation Network. Sony is going to build all of their hardware to distribute all their software over the PSN. That has been the goal for many years now, and it is exactly the same thing MS needs to be doing with the Xbox.
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.j...

But, I disagree about confusing Japanese developers. A developer can make any game they want for the PS3 or any gaming hardware that is out there. after all, the PS3 is just an engine for a game to run on. If Japanese Developers are confused, then it is because they are second guessing themselves and their business strategy. I remember reading somewhere that Japanese developers are trying to break free from the mold of JRPG's and RTS games and focus on more western style games. Look at Quantum Theory for an example of the change in focus. it is, apparently a difficult road for them, trying to appeal to people with a different culture and mentality than their own.

The focus on "shooters" may have increased from the PS2 to the PS3 but, I attribute it to an industry shift in focus across the board, And not necessarily a "goal" that Sony and the Playstation Division have implemented directly.

@beardpapa
That's what i said on a similar news article to .
Xbox needs to have its own identity not trying to be a playstation , it need games to define the xbox brand , gears , halo , fable , alan wake , are a good start but they need more ip's , and not just go to third party's to get some dlc or paying a lot of cash to have an old ip that was relevant last gen on the ps2 .

These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse

Contractual agreements are not the same as “gentlemen” agreements. If you think that they work with their distributors a month before production then their entire business model is trash. They work with companies like nvidia constantly for building the graphics cards they need. They work with companies that build motherboards years in advance. This is what proper business planning does.

They are not buying components on a whim like a consumer. So again, considering the ram isn’t a singular module and is integrated into the motherboard I highly doubt they wouldn’t have a final schematic that they are supposed to be building around.

If they are delaying production another 3 years then it’s obvious again this is an after though project and is just trying to be responsive to their bad execution they had the last 14 years.

It also isn’t far fetched to use their failure to produce first party titles the last 7 years including the highly anticipated games I mentioned all being cancelled. That they would continue to you know… lie

Yeah with FSR 5 they should be able to offer a much cheaper version of Helix.

Series S is what has killed Xbox Series so... Will they dare?

The factors are largely external. Covid and Russia-Ukraine war causing inflation led to the first price increase in 2022.

Then we get Trump's tariffs increasing hardware prices, AI boom causing a RAM crisis, war on Iran causing a worldwide fuel crisis which impacts the cost of everything.

Gaming doesn't exist in a vacuum. The last few years have been a shitshow and lot of it was definitely avoidable.

LucasRuinedChildhood,

For sure. No disagreement on the external factors doing a lot of this. Where I have to gently push back however is on two fronts:

1. The pandemic definitely caused some issues: asynchronous development was a big issue and really complicated timelines and affected game quality. At the same time, when it comes to price hikes, it's really difficult to know what was genuine necessity and what was taking consumers for a ride. The pandemic brought about "stag-flation" which was increasing prices and stagnant wages, which was a problem caused by supply chain constraints. There was also "Greed-flation", where companies that were slightly affected or had no issues took advantage of the situation and squeezed everyone citing supply chain issues when there were none.

2. It's definitely true that the tariffs, AI boom, and RAM crisis were all things enabled by tech broligarchs throwing money at this caricature of a world leader, one of them being Satya Nadella. I don't think Sony and Nintendo have contributed much to this problem if at all, but Microsoft's Nadella I feel was instrumental in causing every one of those issues. Microsoft as a company contributed to both candidates (though they gave Harris 4x as much if I recall), but Nadella was all in on letting AI run wild. He paid for unregulated AI, and got a war that's not a war (even though Trump called it that at least five times on television) that screwed up helium access. So for me, I feel that one of the players in the gaming industry is a key architect of these issues, and for that reason I struggle a bit to think of it as "external".