Xbox hurting Microsoft's bottom line

A FILING WITH THE US Securities and Exchange Commission that Microsoft made at the end of last week has revealed how much its bid to topple the Playstation 2 console is costing.

The filing breaks out Microsoft sales and profitability by division and showed that its Home and Entertainment division made a quarterly loss of $348 million on sales of $1.28 billion. That's a bigger drop than in the same quarter last year, when it lost only $180 million.

So for every Xbox Microsoft sells, it loses around $100.

Microsoft, however, appears to remain committed to pushing on with the Xbox platform, although many observers see Sony's Playstation racing ahead.

In fact, any losses Microsoft makes on this and similar enterprises is well cushioned by the immense profits the firm makes on its operating system and application software business.

You can find Microsoft's filing with the SEC over here. µ

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