Microsoft Loses $177m on Xbox in Three Months

Albanach writes "The BBC News are reporting in this story that Microsoft's Home Entertainment Division has filed a submission to the Securities and Exchange Commission reporting a loss of $177 million for the three months to 30 September 2002. The loss comes on revenues of $505m for the division that manufactures the Xbox games console. Microsoft are said to be prepared to spend $2 billion funding Xbox live over the next five years, suggesting it will be some time before the home entertainment division break into the black."

Comments

Selling one's soul

[skroz]

I've done it... I've sold my soul to the Beast and picked up an x-box live kit. I felt bad enough supporting MS, but when I had to give them a CREDIT CARD NUMBER, I knew I was screwed. But like all those that have sold their souls before me for riches, wealth, power, etc... I'm having one hell of a time. Mmmm... mech assault.

I'll probably be able to pick my soul back up on e-bay soon anyway, but eh.

It's called dumping

[jd]

And, yes, it's probably illegal. But, remember, we're talking about professionals at questionable activity...

• DOS 1 - Reputedly based on stolen CP/M sourcecode
  
• DOS 5 - Contained pirated disk utilities
  
• DOS 6 - Contained pirated disk compression
  
• Windows 3.1 - Contained modifications to break the use of DR-DOS. According to German MS employees, the source was destroyed after it had been requested in the court case that followed.
  
• Windows 3.11 - Contained modifications to break the use of OS/2
  
• Windows 98 - Subject to an illegal bundling lawsuit
  
• Windows 9x network applications - Some of these "suicide" (ie: wipe themselves off the disk) if they detect a non-MS TCP/IP stack
  
• Windows 95-> - Overwrite any bootstrappers present, essentially making it harder to use non-MS OS'.
  
• Then, there's the Anti-Trust lawsuit, which found Microsoft guilty and then required Microsoft to punish itself, with Microsoft watching over to ensure that the punishment was fair. Hmmm....
  

All things considered, dumping sounds perfectly in-character. A pity. MS has the potential to do great good. It certainly has the resources to revolutionise society for the better. Nope, we get dumping and questionable networking practices instead.