Rare Spike in Microsoft Console Profits

PLMIV writes "Microsoft said the company's home and entertainment division, which includes games and the Xbox video game console system, posted its first profitable quarter on sales of its hit game Halo 2. But the company said the division probably would be back in the red for the rest of the fiscal year and would not achieve sustained profitability until sometime in fiscal 2007."

Re:Massaging the books?

[Bill Walker]

They could do it by recognizing expenses late (or early), or failing to account for inter-division expenses in the console segment's books, or by cross-ownership of other businesses (eg. like Circuit City does with CarMax). All of these, incidentally, are pretty obvious. The SEC's pretty strict, so it's hard to cook the books legally.

However, they're not doing anything of the kind. Their press release says this is a blip because of Halo 2, and that they don't expect sustained profitability in consoles until 2007.

Why would they 'throw a bone to xbox supporters', anyway? You can't just buy the console group; you have to buy the whole company.