MS: No Blu-ray has helped Xbox 360

News

Console doesn't carry the same cost burden as PS3.

xbox 3601 -

Microsoft director of product management Aaron Greenberg has revealed he feels the decision not to offer Blu-ray for the Xbox 360 console has been a huge help for the platform.

"The fact that we're able to offer a console starting at $199 is a benefit of not being burdened with that cost," Greenberg told Edge at GDC last week. "Being $100 cheaper is part of the reason why we're nearly twice their installed base [of the PS3]."

Given Greenberg's comments about installed base, we assume he was referring to the US where the Xbox has a significant lead over the PS3.

Greenberg also reiterated Microsoft's commitment to bringing new experiences to the Xbox 360 through software updates.

"The great thing is that we built the heart of the Xbox 360 for continuous innovation," he said. "We can always add more features and functionality, and you don’t have to buy new hardware to do that. You can do it through software updates.

"So someone who buys a 360 today can know that one, two, or three years from now they will get a whole variety of new experiences that make it better through Xbox Live. That sort of thing has never existed before in our industry."

New stuff to check out

View all 31 Comments

Comments

To add your comment, please login or register

Highest Rated Comment

Karlius's Avatar

Karlius@ Neon-Soldier32

Sony and MS are as bad as each other!
Posted 17:17 on 16 March 2010

User Comments

Woffls's Avatar

Woffls

Financial reports cannot just be made up of fabricated numbers. There is still a process by which they are determined, but every company will use window dressing to make them look better.

But, looking at the 09 figures, it's pretty hard to window dress the difference between 6bn, 0.17bn and (0.6)bn
Posted 20:20 on 17 March 2010
Karlius's Avatar

Karlius@ dudester

If you look at the failures in the Division that is "Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division" they'll have nothing in there to cloud their sales.

The gaming arm is self confined also. They only cross over with the peripheral sales such as game pads, mice and Keyboards. It was after the monopolies commission made them split into 3 branches.

That's why you'll be shocked to hear that the entertainment arm hasn't got as much cash as people like to think. They are not the "Platform Products and Services Division" even if they share offices etc. lol.

Sony would also have this as the Playstation falls under the Sony Entertainment Division. Not the same branch that sells the TVs.
Posted 15:20 on 17 March 2010
dudester's Avatar

dudester

One I would say is that includes everything else everything ms do, all sony products and nintendo is just basically their products.

In that sense Nintendo is the most reliable of sources, ms can lose a ton cash on xbox and still be profitable, sony could although their products seem to be struggling overall so there for there's no cracks being papered over.
Posted 14:41 on 17 March 2010
Karlius's Avatar

Karlius@ El-Dev

I wouldn't expect anything less lol. I suppose an NHS Board is slightly different to how MS do things lol.
Posted 09:22 on 17 March 2010
El-Dev's Avatar

El-Dev@ Karlius

They are legally binding but the number of "treatments" the numbers in them go through and how they can be calculated means there is a good opportunity for window dressing, anyone who has studied financial accounting could tell you this.


EDIT: See here.
Posted 09:16 on 17 March 2010
Karlius's Avatar

Karlius@ El-Dev

Except it's a legally binding document. If my place of work gave out false or misleading information we'd be shut down. It's how tax is calculated for one. Granted these are just the overview and we don't see the breakdown but they have to be accurate.
Posted 09:11 on 17 March 2010
SexyJams's Avatar

SexyJams

So do Microsoft and Sony get the majority of their profits from the software then?
Posted 09:03 on 17 March 2010
El-Dev's Avatar

El-Dev@ Karlius

Don't believe financial reports, they can be used to show basically whatever the company wants.

I still reckon as soon as MS can turn a profit on each console sold they will let us know, as will Sony. It's the nature of the beast these days.
Posted 08:42 on 17 March 2010
Karlius's Avatar

Karlius@ El-Dev

You'll find that most companies won't offer their profit margins. It's bad for business. You'll also see that the company was Profitable last year:

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/2009_fiscal_year
You'll see Nintendo are $5.9 billion in the black
You'll see MS to be $169 million in the black
You'll see Sony to be $612 million in the red and the only company to be so.

Nintendo have never said how much they make per Wii sale but the $100+ figure being thrown around is apparent with their high profit margins.
Lets not put all this down to consoles a large chunk of profit is down to successful games. But any console sales model has to counter in sales of games to subsidise any loss at console retail and running costs ie the warranty, staff etc. Which ever way you look at MS usually does better game sales than Sony. Nintendo's own released games kick both their asses though!
Posted 08:06 on 17 March 2010
elvis's Avatar

elvis

When that fifty bucks is your own and not your grandmothers allowance or your parents food stamp money you will find that the cheaper option seems a more realistic option. but when you look closer and see that it does boil down to £150 vs £250 thats three games.

Plus do I really want to buy a load of films of disk that I watch once or twice? When DVDs first came out I jumped on the bandwagon and bought one a week for quite a while. What do I have now? A bunch of dvds in the attic chewing up space.
Posted 23:57 on 16 March 2010
DarthKratos7's Avatar

DarthKratos7

360 cost more or bout the same as a ps3.. 360 arcade is what ? 200 bucks? plus online add 50.00 that'll be 250.00 oh and wait for ppl who need wifi connection they have to shell out another 70 so thats already 320.00 right there without buying no games.. even if that person didnt need wifi you are comparing a system with (NO HARD-Drive) to a ps3 with 120 gb and all the features that come with it just a 50 dollar difference???? 250.00 -300 ?? come on not a big difference so please don't talk this BS bout how the 360 is cheappppper cause it's not..
Posted 22:51 on 16 March 2010
El-Dev's Avatar

El-Dev@ Karlius

I'd assume they'd have told us all if they were making a profit on each unit sold, I reckon they went too cheap too soon. Could have held out a while longer but it has worked for them to a certain extent, but if someone had said at a planning meeting "We're gonna sell 40m consoles in 5 years and still not make a profit from the division" I think they would have got laughed at.

On topic though, if the Daily Express is to be believed Blu Ray could stop those suffering from rickets injuring themselves when getting up to swap discs.
Posted 22:21 on 16 March 2010
Karlius's Avatar

Karlius@ El-Dev

I do they were making profit on certain consoles surprisingly not the core/arcade from the start mate but then cut prices may mean that this is no longer so.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3155499

Also that 3 year warranty is eating into the profit margins. They have approx 2 years left for consoles within the warranty period that could be affected by the rrod however it is less of a failure rate on consoles of 2 years or less apparently.
Posted 21:21 on 16 March 2010
fps_d0minat0r's Avatar

fps_d0minat0r

only shareholders care about profit margins, as gamers we know xbox devs put less content because hardly any games are multidisk.
on the other hand if most ps3 exclusives used DVD's, they would be multidisk.
if HD-DVD failed, what makes them think standard DVD's will do any better?

its going to be funny when they announce their next console and boast about it having blu-ray capability.
Posted 20:27 on 16 March 2010
El-Dev's Avatar

El-Dev

Does anyone know if the 360 makes a profit on every console sold yet?
Posted 18:33 on 16 March 2010