Steve Ballmer's Microsoft

Re:Steve Ballmer's Microsoft by georgemcbay on Tuesday May 15, 2012 @05:40PM (#3979022)

They didn't lose money on the 360 (this past quarter anyway, clearly they did for a first few years of the device's life), they lost it on winding down the remnants of Zune and ramping up Windows Phone.

Also, while the 360 is still king of the consoles in terms of overall sales and is profitable, it is selling less quickly than before because this console generation is past its peak and is riding the downward slope on new units sold until the next hardware refreshes appear.

So the 360 is still a net positive, but less positive than recent past quarters and not positive enough to offset other losses.

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Re:Steve Ballmer's Microsoft by seanmcdirmid on Tuesday May 15, 2012 @07:12PM (#3979452)

However, 360 is only net positive now on a per quarter basis, which only counts current costs against current revenue. That doesn't count the initial investments made on R&D for the 360 or its predecessor. When you look at it from that perspective, "success" is much more difficult to claim.

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