Comments on: Xbox 360 Being Sold at a Loss

By: Matt Hartrich - Buffalo, NY

Matt Hartrich - Buffalo, NY — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 04:52:09 +0000

MS is looking to make money on the games and the on-line community

By: FMF

FMF — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 17:19:35 +0000

Jim, I agree. Big Bill didn’t get to be a ba-zillionaire by being stupid.

By: jim

jim — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 05:26:10 +0000

Back in the day, Microsoft sold their word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software in a suite for $99 when lotus and wordperfect sold their individual spreadsheet and word processor for hundreds of dollars. Lotus and wordperfect were the big dogs in the market at the time and now we know who is.

I think Microsoft knows what its doing taking a loss on these units.

By: nickel

nickel — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 13:34:25 +0000

Good point regarding what Microsoft is likely to pay for components. Another thing to keep in mind, however, is that these figures don’t include such as advertising and the cost of getting the Xbox to market, so there are other costs that are still unaccounted for.

By: Chad

Chad — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 12:08:57 +0000

I agree with the previous post – there is no way the loss is that much. Microsoft was behind last time the new round of systems came out, but this time, they beat Sony/Nintendo to the punch and they have the only new system out for the Holidays. I think this was a very critical mistake by the other company’s since there is no competition.

By: Not Bill Gates

Not Bill Gates — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 11:56:57 +0000

While this is an interesting economic story, I should point out that this is an “estimate” of the cost of building an XBox 360 by some think-tank, based on the components inside. It does not take into account the fact that it is being built by Microsoft, which is unlikely to be paying MSRP for parts or labor.