Xbox Arm of Microsoft Posts Profit

GameDailyBiz is reporting that Microsoft has posted a rare profit for their games business. As you might imagine, the good news is courtesy of high game and console sales thanks to Halo 3. "[Entertainment Division] revenue increased primarily due to increased Xbox 360 console and game sales. Xbox and PC game revenue increased $895 million or 148% as a result of increased Xbox 360 console sales, video game sales led by Halo 3, and Xbox 360 accessory sales. We shipped 1.8 million Xbox 360 consoles in the current quarter as compared to 0.9 million consoles in the first quarter of fiscal year 2007. Halo 3 was launched in September 2007 and generated approximately $330 million of revenue during the quarter."

Halo

[king-manic]

Every Quarter Halo is released is profitable for that quarter. Still not profitable that year or over all yet. Maybe in 2008.

Re:Now what?

[ObiWanStevobi]

First of all, I doubt Halo 3 is done moving consoles. As long as Sony fans are left waiting for a Halo killer, there will be converts.

Second, their overall collection of very good games (but not real console movers) is far outpacing Sony. The best game Sony will have before spring 2008 is the Orange Box, which Xbox already has. Their next best game, Oblivion (IMO), Xbox had early as well. Resistance was pretty good, but on Xbox you have Gears Of War beating it out. Sony needs more than one or two good games to catch up. Xbox box has (will have by years end) many solid unanswered games: Dead Rising, Forza, Ace Combat 6, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Saints Row, Perfect Dark Zero, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, etc.

I do think Xbox made a huge mistake in promoting Halo over their overall line-up. A Halo killer will come along eventually. But where their biggest lead over Sony will be is overall line-up (and online service). To their credit, they do have some exclusive RPGs meant to combat FF, but they just don't do it. They might, however, be enough to lure someone that was waiting on that single PS3 game and liked some of Xbox's other titles.

XBox Live is the killer app

[sneakyimp]

Given the popularity of WoW and Counterstrike type games, my thinking is that on-line games are the killer app. Human players are *so much more interesting* than AI. Halo just offers a taste of that. I believe Microsoft is well-positioned in this regard relative to Nintendo and Sony due to XBox Live. PS3 is pretty much tanking all around as far as I can tell. Also, isn't Grand Theft Auto one of the most serious console-movers in history? According to Wikipedia, M$ is a step ahead of sony there and there is not GTA planned for the Wii is there? "It has been confirmed that episodic content will be released on the Xbox 360 exclusively. Microsoft officially announced a strategic alliance with Rockstar Games over the rights to episodic content through their Xbox Live service at their X06 event. An announcement regarding the release of episodic content for the PS3, however, is still expected, whilst fans speculate that each console will receive its own exclusive episodic content via their respective download services (Xbox Live for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation Network for the PlayStation 3)."