XBone Vs PS4 Vs PC - VIDEOGAME POLITICS THUNDERDOME - PS4:900p-XBone:720p-PC::smug:

[Erick Estrada]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...t-charges.html

Not good news for Sony as they cut their earnings for the 3rd time in the last year posting a net loss of $1.3 billion. It's just a matter of time IMO.

[Mazrim]

Oof, Blu Ray is slowing down way faster than they expected, it seems.

[Street Pharmacist]

What areas of Sony's business is profitable? Is the video game branch profitable?

[ComixZone]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

What areas of Sony's business is profitable? Is the video game branch profitable?

I believe I've heard it's the only profitable branch.

Which is why you're seeing them drastically changing the way their company works - including selling-off and effectively abandoning entire divisions and in turn becoming a smaller (more geared to their success than their failures) company.

Sony as a whole won't go away, but significant chunks of the company will - and they should. Dump what doesn't work, continue to focus on what does.

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...t-charges.html

Not good news for Sony as they cut their earnings for the 3rd time in the last year posting a net loss of $1.3 billion. It's just a matter of time IMO.

What is a matter of time? Sony entirely folding? Not a chance.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

It's just a matter of time IMO.

Originally Posted by ComixZone

Sony as a whole won't go away, but significant chunks of the company will - and they should. Dump what doesn't work, continue to focus on what does.

What is a matter of time? Sony entirely folding? Not a chance.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...story-for-sony

Amid the doom and gloom, PlayStation is doing well. During the quarter ending 31st December 2013 the Game business made a profit of $172m off the back of an impressive 64.6 per cent rise in sales year on year.


I also sorta recall that the Xbox division is losing $2-3 billion a year and investors have been wanting to sell it/spin it off for a long time now. Could be wrong but I think Microsoft tries to combine the patent royalties it gets from Android to smooth over that number.

Could it just be a "matter of time" before Xbox is sold off to say . . . Amazon? Who knows.

[McG]

Originally Posted by chemgear

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...story-for-sony

Amid the doom and gloom, PlayStation is doing well. During the quarter ending 31st December 2013 the Game business made a profit of $172m off the back of an impressive 64.6 per cent rise in sales year on year.


I also sorta recall that the Xbox division is losing $2-3 billion a year and investors have been wanting to sell it/spin it off for a long time now. Could be wrong but I think Microsoft tries to combine the patent royalties it gets from Android to smooth over that number.

Could it just be a "matter of time" before Xbox is sold off to say . . . Amazon? Who knows.

these are relatively selective quotes; not picking on chemgear because the content is all over the place across the internet and it is quite disparate. one estimate had console sales only (no games) for the last gen as m$ losing $3 billion and Sony losing $5 billion. attached games and other services are intended to provide cost coverage and eventually profits for the platforms, which it looks like it did. it isn't billions per year of losses though.

Two Microsoft shareholders and some analysts want M$ to focus on enterprise software and not on consumer electronics due to profitability being higher, not because the entertainment group loses money.

Let's not kid ourselves though; one parent company is definitely more stable financially.

IMO it is best for gamers if both consoles are neck and neck with each other.

[cDnStealth]

M$ is definitely losing money on their Xbox division. Sony however, is hemorrhaging money from so many of their divisions I've lost count. M$ can more than afford to lose a few million on their game division because everything else is profitable.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

What is a matter of time? Sony entirely folding? Not a chance.

They may not fold entirely but by the end of this decade they will be much smaller and not nearly as significant. It's very possible they go bankrupt (78% chance according to Macroaxis) in the coming years.

There's absolutely no comparison to Microsoft here as Microsoft as a company is very healthy and the Xbox is only a small part of their business. Why would Microsoft sell off Xbox when they know their main competition is close to bankruptcy? I think they have invested far too much into the Xbox to bail out and besides the selling of Xbox isn't real just us talking about it. Sony is really in trouble.

[McG]

Originally Posted by cDnStealth

M$ is definitely losing money on their Xbox division. Sony however, is hemorrhaging money from so many of their divisions I've lost count. M$ can more than afford to lose a few million on their game division because everything else is profitable.

i'm sorry but that isn't the slightest bit factual on the Xbox division. if you can post here you can work an internet search engine and find many Microsoft quarterly and annual reports and analysis. or do you have access to secret information that hasn't been released to the market?

It does look as if both gaming divisions are profitable right now though from publically available information.

[Erick Estrada]

Kind of makes sense given that Sony has been axing games in development and the layoffs with their developers, the main developers all leaving Naughty Dog, etc. Kind of sucks as I've always been a Sony fan as they have made some good stuff over the years that just haven't become mainstream. I like Betamax over VHS, I even adopted the minidisc, bought lots of their TV's, etc. Even SACD was pretty cool if you could find your favorite artists with one available. They just haven't adapted to the times well and have been hurt by changes in the landscape as it appears blu-ray isn't going to have long legs with streaming becoming the norm.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

Oof, Blu Ray is slowing down way faster than they expected, it seems.

What is Oof?

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Kind of makes sense given that Sony has been axing games in development and the layoffs with their developers, the main developers all leaving Naughty Dog, etc. Kind of sucks as I've always been a Sony fan as they have made some good stuff over the years that just haven't become mainstream. I like Betamax over VHS, I even adopted the minidisc, bought lots of their TV's, etc. Even SACD was pretty cool if you could find your favorite artists with one available. They just haven't adapted to the times well and have been hurt by changes in the landscape as it appears blu-ray isn't going to have long legs with streaming becoming the norm.

It's kind of funny if you think about Blu-Ray as finally being the one format-war Sony thought it had finally won, only to lose to streaming as become the new standard.

[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by McG

i'm sorry but that isn't the slightest bit factual on the Xbox division. if you can post here you can work an internet search engine and find many Microsoft quarterly and annual reports and analysis. or do you have access to secret information that hasn't been released to the market?

It does look as if both gaming divisions are profitable right now though from publically available information.

What the hell are you on about? It's been well documented over the years that Microsoft has lost money on the Xbox (in terms of hardware sales). They've always taken hits on their consoles (as has everyone not named Nintendo) and the One is no different. That doesn't make it not profitable because they can recoup that money through software sales, subscriptions etc.

And I did look at their quarterly reports. But saying you made $24.5B as an entire company and that you sold 3.9M Xbox Ones doesn't tell you anything close to the whole story. They're not going to publish that they sold 3.9M Xbones but took a $100 hit on each unit. Now I have no idea what kind of dollar amount they lose per One, nor do I know what Sony loses on theirs but they do lose money on hardware sales. FACT.

How about next time you be less of a condescending ass.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

It's kind of funny if you think about Blu-Ray as finally being the one format-war Sony thought it had finally won, only to lose to streaming as become the new standard.

Tough to fault them for that as it's a good technology and needed at the time but in a relatively quick manner it's become rendered nearly obsolete. Had HD-DVD won that war they would be in the same position today. If you want to look at bad gambles you have stuff like the cell processor.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Kind of sucks as I've always been a Sony fan as they have made some good stuff over the years that just haven't become mainstream. I like Betamax over VHS, I even adopted the minidisc, bought lots of their TV's, etc. Even SACD was pretty cool if you could find your favorite artists with one available. They just haven't adapted to the times well and have been hurt by changes in the landscape as it appears blu-ray isn't going to have long legs with streaming becoming the norm.

My dad was a big Sony guy when I was growing up. I'll miss seeing Sony TVs around if they ditch that since it was all we had before flat screens became a thing. He's still using an ancient stereo receiver from the early 80s and it sounds great to this day. It looks similar to this:

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

What is Oof?

You know, when you make the sound "oof" like you got hit by something.

[McG]

Originally Posted by cDnStealth

What the hell are you on about? It's been well documented over the years that Microsoft has lost money on the Xbox (in terms of hardware sales). They've always taken hits on their consoles (as has everyone not named Nintendo) and the One is no different. That doesn't make it not profitable because they can recoup that money through software sales, subscriptions etc.

And I did look at their quarterly reports. But saying you made $24.5B as an entire company and that you sold 3.9M Xbox Ones doesn't tell you anything close to the whole story. They're not going to publish that they sold 3.9M Xbones but took a $100 hit on each unit. Now I have no idea what kind of dollar amount they lose per One, nor do I know what Sony loses on theirs but they do lose money on hardware sales. FACT.

How about next time you be less of a condescending ass.

maybe...how about next time you be less of an incompetent moron.

unnecessary insults out of the way? good; let's get to the interesting stuff...the numbers.

I already posted that one interpretation was that the hardware of both companies lost $8B in total last gen. And I already posted that both of the new consoles appear to be profitable based upon the publicly available information. M$ claim to be breaking even or slightly better on a $500 xbox one here: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ng-from-launch

You posted that "M$ is definitely losing money on their Xbox division", which i disagreed with. you can check a good breakdown here: http://www.microsoft.com/Investor/Ea...rformance.aspx You can mouseover and see charts of previous quarters and FYs.

Unfortunately, there is no complete breakdown of all things Xbox, at least that i could find.

I don't disagree that M$ and Sony might bury charges and other items in their books, and i don't disagree that hardware might be sold at a loss to get to the profitability of games and other attachments. However...

M$ shows that Devices and Consumer Hardware division earned $300 million gross margin total over the last 4 quarters; this group includes Surface and Xbox (both 360 and One).

M$ shows that Devices and Consumer Other division earned $1.7B gross margin total over the last 4 quarters; this group includes Xbox Live.

According to publicly available information, the "Xbox Division" responsible for hardware as it is calculated and included in the M$ books, definitely made money over the last 4 quarters. That is a fact. It doesn't matter that you "know" that it didn't; the facts are that the published and audited public accounts of the divisions where the xbox is found made money, including the hardware division.

To wrap things up, i have no issues with your posts or you personally as a poster. However the "xbox division", hardware or software, didn't lose money for the last 4 quarters, which was my point.

[strombad]

Originally Posted by McG

maybe...how about next time you be less of an incompetent moron.

If I was cDn, I probably would have stopped reading after that line.

Don't be such a dick, seriously. It's the XBOX. You have to be a condescending jerk towards someone because they got a fact about THE XBOX wrong?

Puh-lease. Girl, you trippin.

[bubbsy]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...t-charges.html

Not good news for Sony as they cut their earnings for the 3rd time in the last year posting a net loss of $1.3 billion. It's just a matter of time IMO.

slightly off topic, but seriously, wtf happened? Sony was the top brand among consumer electronics during my entire childhood, teens, and young-adult life. Suddenly in the past 5 or so years, they have completely fallen off the map.

Is this due to their quality diminishing? or were they never technically the best at anything, and now in the info-sharing (ie. vast online reviews, etc) is outweighing their brand when it comes to consumer decision making?

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by bubbsy

slightly off topic, but seriously, wtf happened? Sony was the top brand among consumer electronics during my entire childhood, teens, and young-adult life. Suddenly in the past 5 or so years, they have completely fallen off the map.

Is this due to their quality diminishing? or were they never technically the best at anything, and now in the info-sharing (ie. vast online reviews, etc) is outweighing their brand when it comes to consumer decision making?

The product quality and industrial design was never the issue, they continued making reliable products that looked very good. Issue was they became too premium, too big and too unfocused for a decade making it incredibly hard for them to adapt to changes. They remained focused on making great hardware when other companies were moving to better software and better content, better analytics to achieve results.

From a hardware manufacturer standpoint, other companies continued to improve their production quality while Sony rested on their laurels. Chinese manufacturers severely undercut Sony's profit margins as more and more people adopted their production processes. Other companies were offering similar quality products soon at a lower cost.

Sony's business decision making was inflexible, arrogant and disastrous for nearly a decade ending in the late 2000s. They did not accept the reality that after years of telling the consumer what the consumer wanted, things like propriety designs that made Sony loads of profits, more standards based alternatives that were better designed and cheaper were taking consumer hold. While they still had very cutting edge and innovated industrial design, some of the core ideas built into their products were either off market or they were never given enough attention by business.

Things have changed though, Sony is adapting by shedding it's years and years of bureaucracy. Products are now leaps and bounds more consumer friendly with better polished than they were before. Just look, their cameras use SD cards again! They listened to the consumer building the PS4 and it's a commercial hit winning back a lot of their market share. Their phones, the z/z1 are critically acclaimed and are starting to reverse the huge drops in market share they experienced due to iPhone. AND they've made price reductions to make them competitive again. Question now is where Sony has changed fast enough and whether they have enough cash reserves to make it through the reorganization and streamlining to become an overall successful company again. The gaming division isn't a problem right now since it's been quite profitable, the mobile division is starting to see profits again (it's first in five years). Can other divisions can make the same turnarounds or will they be shed like Sony's PC business? Who knows... but the gaming division will be healthy for at least this generation (5-8 years)

[McG]

Originally Posted by strombad

If I was cDn, I probably would have stopped reading after that line.

Don't be such a dick, seriously. It's the XBOX. You have to be a condescending jerk towards someone because they got a fact about THE XBOX wrong?

Puh-lease. Girl, you trippin.

more name calling? wtf? how about you stop being a dick, seriously. you know that there are over 2800 posts in this thread? girl... you trippin' if facts don't matter; puh-lease. see how that reads? just like your post.

At what point should we separate fact from opinion? is it when someone states "FACT" despite it being wrong?

is it a big deal as "FACT Jarome Iginla has more goals than Gretzky"? Or "FACT the videogame industry is bigger than hockey" when one is more easily proven than the other?

As I stated, it is best for all gamers that both consoles are neck and neck. and as I stated, I don't mind cDn's posts or thoughts, so why are you getting involved? cDn was wrong, came back at me (and contradicted his/her original post and did look at FY numbers) and threw an insult my way, which I tossed back. and now you.

3rd person in? for what purpose other than to argue and name call? cDn is a decent poster so not sure of the need for your involvement unless you have financial info that adds or contradicts.

To be honest, I'm happy to leave this unfortunate side thread behind and get back to the topic at hand... thunderdome. Some really good posts on this thread and I wouldn't want it derailed into a slagging match.