Microsoft Finally Turns a Profit with Xbox

Ahh, the Xbox 360. It’s hard to believe it’s already been just over two years since the console has first launched, but it’s true. It’s also true that it took that long for Microsoft to turn a simple profit. Incredible. Until now, they’ve been losing money on each sale, leveraging their debt with game and accessory sales, but now might be the time when Xbox debt will be no longer.

According to their second quarter earnings, a lot of the profit was helped by Halo 3 game sales and resulting console sales, on top of lower production costs and decreased marketing (since it’s already well-established). When younger, I never imagined Microsoft would have a console, but I’d have to say if I could choose only one of the current offerings, it would have to be the Xbox. Though, maybe some of this profit could go towards fixing up Xbox Live’s downtime issues to make sure they don’t come back?

The 6.1 million Xbox 360 consoles and 4.82 million copies of Halo 3 sold in the first half of fiscal ’08 sure helped, but so did “decreased Xbox 360 manufacturing costs” and “a decline in Xbox 360 platform marketing expenses” – it’s costing less to build them and less to promote the brand.

Source: Joystiq