The Xbox Brand Churns Its First Profit

January 25th, 2008 by Brian Lockhart in Business, News, Xbox360

It’s been 6 years in the making, but the behemoth Xbox brand has actually failed to make any sort of net profit up until this point. After the cost of development, marketing (which has been extremely heavy to get the brand to this point) and losses on consoles is factored in, the Xbox hasn’t exactly been profitable for Microsoft. News of their first quarterly earnings comes directly from Microsoft’s quarterly financial report.

The company made $524 million over the last quarter, in thanks to strong holiday sales as well as Halo 3, which more than pulled its weight since its Fall release. While the earnings are decent, the gaming division is still well in the hole overall, and will probably be a long time coming before it recovers its losses.

One thing is for sure, with the Xbox finally making some money for Microsoft, we should continue to at least see it stick around for a few generations. Microsoft while huge, can only support costly brand for so long before they would have to cut their losses, and its great to see this will not be the case. Maybe next generation they will take a page from Nintendo’s books and laugh their way to the bank every quarter.

Tags: Business, News, Xbox360