Are you sure?
2005: $485 million loss
2006: $1.26 billion loss
2007: $1.89 billion loss
Looks like they need to break into neighbouring galaxies.
Do you know many other companies who would still be in the market today after making a $3-4b loss?
learn how big business works . 2bill losses still lead to 500 other companies making 15 billion on games sales that without the hardware, simply would not happen. so 2 bil loss generates 10 billion profits for other companies, and i'm SURE, in the day and age where everyone owns stocks in multiple companies, and stock option deals for exclusives and stuff that no one in charge at microsoft is making money through the other companies.
you get people who are involved with 10 companies, you don't care that MS losses 2 billion there because it makes 10 so overall its a say 8 billion profit company. the same guy is heavily involved with say , i dunno, ID, and they make 1billion profits, now they could push for a deal to insist that ID give much more money to MS per game sold, which would push MS numbers into the positive, but it would push ID numbers into the negative, which looks bad, scares shareholders and just isn't good for business, but the point is the SAME amount of PROFIT ends up in the same guys hands no matter where the money came from.
that is how business works, they are making billions and billions off the xbox, and anyone that thinks otherwise is completely clueless.
bonus's paid directly, presents in the form of planes, and stock options and access to corporate retreats, and conference rooms to hold meetings somewhere you don't own offices, it all add's up to billions in money that goes to the owners, but doesn't go into turnover and company holdings. steve jobs keeps getting retarded amounts of stock option bonus's, for lots of places, owned several other companys, built them up, sold them back to apple and now runs apple again, where he's recieved billions in corporate gifts which don't count as his salery. he's gotten a plane and lots of other "bonus's".
welcome to the real world.
all stats, everywhere can be manipulated to say anything they want, the problem is you are drawing the conclusions on those loss's that they want you to draw. its better for them for YOU to and the public to think MS is massively profitable with a division for gaming spending money to make you happy, than to have an even more profitable MS, with a console division making massive profits at your cost while asking why the hardware is so much, while ID, and dozens of other companies suddenly appear in massive danger of collapsing.
also very much worth remembering that bonus's for guys on the boards/managing directors are often paid obviously based on performance. if the same guy is on 5 different companies, and 4 looks like they make little money, with MS being the only one he'll get a bonus from. its better for him for ms to make 8 billion instead of 10, and have the other 4 companies appear to be making the money, claiming 4 more massive bonus's.
PS, am i the only one who has basically, in the last decade never seen an advert for something i didn't know about? i mean, did anyone not know what halo 3 is, and not know it was coming out before they started advertising it on billboards? spending money on advertising, when basically everyone has access to the internet, and finds out about all the stuff way before they spend millions on advertising. its insane.
, not because MS arent putting out enough adverts, I see Fifa and Halo 3 adverts almost everywhere