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Microsoft’s Xbox Quarter: Losses Shrink, So Does Revenue

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Xbox 360,

Xbox 360 Yesterday, Microsoft reported their quarterly results for the period ending March 31, 2007. Overall, the results were good for the company, moving to record profits based largely on getting Vista and the latest version of Office out the door. Still, for gamers, one thing has stood out – while losses in the Entertainment and Devices Division shrunk, so did revenues.

Dean Takahashi at Mercury News describes this reduction in sales as a “disturbing trend.” Since Microsoft doesn’t break out revenues by subgroup in the Entertainment division, it’s really hard to understand where this leaves the Xbox 360. Comparing March totals, Xbox 360 sales were down around 30% year-over-year, but this reflects a time period where Microsoft was still pretty much in the initial honeymoon phase of the console launch. Microsoft notoriously had supply problems during the first few months, but by March had seemed to catch up with demand, so the company was probably still dealing with early adopters.

More interesting is Takahashi’s dissection of the company’s ongoing losses with the Xbox 360. Even with cost reductions in hardware and having a really strong tie rate, the company is still losing money per console. With the estimated figures in the article, this projects to $53 lost per console. We can’t really know what the financials behind the Xbox 360 are, but project this to Sony, where their tie rate is much lower and the console hardware cost is much higher, or Nintendo, who claims to make a profit on each console sold, regardless of software sold later.

Read More | Microsoft’s Q3 Results

Read More | Mercury News

Gallery: Microsoft’s Xbox Quarter: Losses Shrink, So Does Revenue


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GameStop’s Holiday Sales Top $1.7 Billion

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360,

GameStop It looks like enforced bundles of the Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii, along with strong holiday sales have boosted GameStops financials, as the company raised guidance for their fourth quarter and full year results. GameStop reports that total sales for the holiday season reached $1.73 billion. The top five video game releases for the holiday season were:

  • Gears of War
  • Final Fantasy XII
  • Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
  • Guitar Hero II
  • WWE Smackdown vs RAW 2007

Interestingly, no Playstation 3 title made the list, but two Playstation 2 titles did, along with one Xbox 360 release, one combination Wii/Gamecube release, and one multi-platform title in Smackdown. Console shortages might have limited the revenue that the company received from next generation releases, but this would seem to be one more data point indicating that the Playstation 2 will still be a sales monster into the coming year.

Read More | Reuters

Gallery: GameStop’s Holiday Sales Top $1.7 Billion


Sony Reduces Profit Outlook 62 Percent

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, PlayStation 3, PSP,

Playstation 3
Sony today cut their profit outlook by 62 percent, blaming battery recall costs, the Japanese Playstation 3 price cut, and weaker than expected sales of their PSP console. According to a Reuters report, Sony reduced its profit target for the year to 50 billion yen from previous estimates of 130 billion yen. In addition, Sony reduced its PSP shipment target to 9 million units, down 25 percent from previous estimates. While Sony has seen the PSP console fail to meet sales projections, Nintendo has raised their sales target over the same period, making Sony’s assertions that they are holding their own in the market suspect.

Read More | Reuters

Gallery: Sony Reduces Profit Outlook 62 Percent


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