Xbox 360 unit sales rise to 13.7 million during 12-month earnings period as Entertainment & Devices Division pulls in $2.7 billion.
Microsoft's Xbox 360 has been a dominant force at US retail, having outsold Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii in 12 out of the past 13 months, according to the NPD Group. That success is reflected in Microsoft's full-year earnings report, which the Redmond, Washington-based company issued today.
The Entertainment & Devices Division, of which the Xbox 360, Zune, and Windows Phone 7 are included, saw sales rocket to $8.93 billion during the 12-month period ended June 30, a 45 percent rise over last year. Microsoft attributed the spike primarily to its Xbox brand, which includes the console, Kinect motion sensor, and Xbox Live online service.
The Xbox 360 sold 13.7 million units during the 2011 fiscal year, up from 10.3 million units sold during the same period last year. Fourth-quarter sales of the console (that is, the April-June months), came in at 1.7 million units, up from 1.5 million during the same three-month period last year.
Microsoft did not provide a sales update for the Kinect, having said in March that the device had sold 10 million units since launching in November. However, as part of a post-earnings conference call, Microsoft CFO Peter Klien said Xbox Live subscriptions now stand at 35 million.
Operating income from Microsoft's EDD more than doubled during the 12-month period, rising 114 percent year-over-year to $1.3 billion. Of the factors hampering profit from the division were an increased spend on research and development, which rose 12 percent to $119 million during the fiscal year. Microsoft also ramped up EDD marketing efforts by 12 percent, bringing total spend on selling the platform to $90 million.
Microsoft's EDD wasn't the only segment fueling the company's top and bottom line. On a company-wide basis, Microsoft said that it earned a personal-best $17.37 billion during the fiscal year ended June 30, 2011, an 8 percent uptick over the year prior. Net income saw even bigger gains, rising 30 percent to $5.87 billion.
It wasn't all roses and sunshine for Microsoft, however. Windows sales were down 2 percent during the fiscal year. Since its release in mid-2009, Microsoft's most recent operating system, Windows 7, has sold more than 400 million licenses.
Tom Magrino has covered the games industry since 2006. He's been compared to Steve Martin by Ozzy Osbourne and Daniel Craig by Tim Schafer. His voice, heard largely on GameSpot's podcast, recalls that of Kermit the Frog. It ain't easy bein' Magreen.
@monson21502 Dude you're hilarious!.."i know alot think im a huge fanboy," anyone who reads through this thread will not only think but know you're a fanboy! You're all over this thread like white on rice! I thought my statement was fairly neutral. I simply stated a prediction and a fact.
But again your using just a fraction of the whole picture. Your basing your information for just the month of July 2011 to say the US is 50% of the world gaming market, But in order to make a statement like that you need to base it on entire sales. If you look, the Wii is approx. 48% sales in the US, 360 59%, PS3 39% DS 38% and PSP 32%, That is about 43.2% on just Console sales. which to me, isn't 50%. Since you wish to state sources, www.vgchartz.com. Now, If you wished to say that the US makes up 58% of the total gaming market for the month of July 2011, I would completely agree with you. In fact I would just say about 60% just for an easier conversation. BTW, I don't hate Amarica, I live here and I like America just fine. Just because I feel the need to correct you on your statement of "The US is a fraction of the gaming market? Yeah a pretty damn big one at that." Which is a sarcastic way of saying its not a fraction. When 50% is clearly a fraction. And then correcting another mistake you made by using the sales from the month of July 2011 to justify your statement of the us being 50% of the Gaming market, when according to your source its 43.2%, Doesn't mean I hate America, It simply means I felt the need to correct you with my clear stupidity. BTW, the stupidity comments are because of the sarcasm you used to make me appear stupid. And this makes a 3rd correction I have made, "Its just tough for you that you hate America for whatever reason, " Well I don't.
@RPG_Fan_I_Am Take a look at worldwide sales. Then minus US sales and the US makes up more than 50% of total worldwide sales. For instance, according to www.vgchartz.com for the week of July 16th 2011: Wii = US sales 57,912, Worldwide total 106,709 = US 54% of worldwide sales 360 = US sales 72,468 Worldwide total 105,741 = US 68.5% of worldwide sales PS3 = US sales 55,379 Worldwide total 100,541 = US 55% of worldwide sales DS = US 59,062 world total 95,185 = US 62% world PSP = US 21,621 world total 48,639 = US 44.5% world 3DS = US 24,388 world total 43,207 = US 56% of world in total US sales were 290,830 total worldwide sales of 500,022 which means overall the US makes up 58% of the worldwide gaming market. Statistically than, it would make sense that as the US market goes, so does the world. Of course there will be variances in specific sales but not to a great degree. So as I have shown you with facts, figures and sources, yes the US game market makes up more than half of the worldwide game market. Again, do some research. Its just tough for you that you hate America for whatever reason, but America is still the number 1 consumer in the world. Its just a fact.
@Phatjam98 First off I never said I didn't remember the Wii reports, I simply said I don't remember there being as many reports. I see these reports like once a moth now talking about how the 360 is out selling everything in the US. I remember the Wii reports being like once every 3 months or so. But in the 360 reports everyone is always like "Yay go xbox, Its dominating the gaming market." or "This just shows that the 360 is clearly a better system", when telling me just US information tells me nothing about how well the 360 is actually selling in the Gaming Market. And the US maybe half of the 360 market, but it is not half of the Gaming Market. Japan Alone takes up a large portion, Western Europe another. Plus Australia , several parts of Canada, and I think the northern end of south America doesn't do to bad either. but I'm not entirely sure on that one. but as you said it varies from month to month too. And I wasn't spoutig off, I was simply stating a fact about a fraction can be large or small amounts of a whole. And you even admit that its a fraction, but unless the US is like 75-80% of the Gaming market, You can't know exactly how well something is selling. My example I already posted works fine as a demonstration of that.
@RPG_Fan_I_Am Than you clearly wern't paying attention. When the Wii was selling out like hot cakes for what, 3+ years that was all the sales reports talked about. How the Wii was killin the Xbox and PS3. Or they were talking about how terrible the PS3 sales were. Those were the two stories that dominated for years. The fact that you cant remember those stories just goes to show you weren't paying attention back then. The US is the largest portion of the gaming market not a fraction. Ok sure they are a fraction, that fraction is generally around 1/2 depending on the month. Seriously, do some research before you spout off.
@PseudoElite A fraction doesn't always mean small... a third is a fraction, half is a fraction, a quarter is a fraction.... a hundredth is a fraction too... Sorry I learned math in the US. It seems I'm pretty dumb. But compared to world wide sales its still a fraction. Let make up some figures. These aren't real but just a for instance. If the 360 sold 10 million units in the US total so far, and maybe 50 million total world wide then the US is only a fifth of the total sales, and Lets say the PS3 sold only 5 million Units in the US, Then the 360 appears to be selling double the amount of PS3's, but what if world wide the PS3 sold 50 million Units too, That means that the US is accountable for a tenth of the PS3 sales. But world wide both systems are actually doing the exact same in sales. But according to just US numbers which are still large fractions of the total sales, still has the 360 selling double the PS3's. Thus just looking at just US sales are just telling you a fraction of what the total sales are doing. But then again IDK how math works and what a fraction is so, Who am I to look intelligent.
theshonen8899 :: There's more to Life than your precious PS3 and XBOX 360. ... Now that's The Realistic Way of Looking at IT. No Novel needed in this Forum.
Way to go microsoft , and with that new R2D2 one , u might actually make me buy my second Smodel with a second kinect. ... how do i take care of triplets? lol i never owned more than one of any individual system while it was relevant , i cant believe how well microsoft is doing . Sony needs to get their act together for ps4. because its obvious that msoft won out in the end. ( of course im just a game collector so this is all imo )
@gino_pachino actually the genesis , nes , and even atari had online games. :) its really interesting to know that people were playing online in mortal kombat 2 and 3 on snes back in the day.
@RPG_Fan_I_Am The US is a fraction of the gaming market? Yeah a pretty damn big one at that.
People are upset because its only showing US sales? LMAO! You do realize that America has the largest gaming population per household then any other country, right? America HAS more gamers then South America, Africa, Australia and most of Asia COMBINED. Feel good knowing that you learned something today. ;)
Actually the US is about the same size as the others combined. Japan is tiny compared to US or Europe but that's where they are based.
I hate these reports.... They are just US sales. The US is just a fraction of the gaming market. Telling me this tells me virtually nothing... and they are always for the xbox, I don't ever remember there being this many reports about the Wii when it was the top selling console.... And I think the Wii reports actually included world wide sales....
Fact: Xbox does not prohibit free dlc or updates. I cannot speak for their relationship with Valve, but I have DL'd dozens of free dlc and updates. So it is not as simple as "they prohibit it".
not shocked, they r in the biggest marketplace US where they own. and don't give me wii usa sales please.....no one buys wii games like that.
Damn pirates.BIg corps deserve more than that. I'm going to continue to work 40+ hours a week and spend 25% of my income to buy 2 of every xbox360 game i want. /sarcasm end
When there are so few console exclusives these days, I think it makes sense that gamers choose the system that's $200-300 instead of the one that's $300-350.
Once you work behind the scenes your eyes will widen big time about why Xbox Live has a monthly fee, the infrastructure is amazing. I'm proud to say I work for Xbox Live and really love my job. :)
@Rottenwood Yep, our two copies of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood has them using hundred dollar bills to light their excessive Cuban cigars as They plan world domination. This isn't about blame, but it's all our fault.
@BigAl519 Actually I know a great deal about it. There was a good cost analysis done a little while ago on the impact Blu-Ray had on Sony. Had Sony not included it in the PS3 they would have had $4-Billion more in profits as opposed to loss (for a company that typicall averages $500-million in profit a year that's ratehr huge). Further they do not "own" blu-ray they are part of a group who shares the royalties though they did pick up the lion?s share of costs to develop. Business exists for the sole purpose of making money. And yes the PS2 made them money...and for everyone that bought a PS2 after the release of the PS3...well that was someone who was not looking to buy a PS3. And developers were slow to switch for 2 major reasons. 1) The PS2 install base was far more profitable...the cost to develop a PS2 title was a fraction of that compared to the PS3 and worse (or better depending on your point of view) some of the worst PS2 titles released made more money than some of the best PS3 titles. Talk about business models. 2) When ever Sony releases new hardware it comes with new developer tool set that are not compatible or even simular to the previous generation. Square-Enix actually has a very successful side business selling their development libraries to smaller companies who do not thave the time or infrastructure to build them from scratch. All of that combined with Sony's initial arrogance from the PS2 allowed MS to maintain their lead.
@monson21502... "like it or not ms is the best thing that has happened to gaming in a very long time" depend how you see the thing sometimes i miss my old school reliable piece of hardware and i dont realy like the dlc why dont you sell the full game instead selling a part of it(i talk for the 3 systhem here)..... "if it was for ms you wouldnt have online at all on ps3 or wii"....... if it was for sega dreamcast you wouldnt have online on consoles they were the first to bring online on consoles... and i dont know if you remember but before ps1 gaming console was more for kid(i dont say it a bad thing i love old school game) sony was the first to make a "mature console" so if we think like this it because of sony you can play mature game?
@Megavideogamer I thought the Kinect was lame and more gimmick than anything else but then I played it at my friend's house...and it was a lot more fun than expected.
That is impressive the Xbox 360 S has outsold the Playstation 3 and Wii 12-out of 13 months. Kinect has seem to be a hit. I can't see how... but Microsoft has found something new. For some reason people like Kinect.
@Yuck_Too You really need to do a bit of research before posting. Sony outsold MS every year since the PS3 was released regardless of the high release price tag. Even that was a win for them, they had a high price tag so they could put out a new format, which dominated and has made them billions. And let me get this right, Sony kept the PS2 going making a ton of sales on it to this day, still released games for it which made them even more money, yet it was a smarter move for MS and Nintendo to completely stop making money off there older systems?? Your example of Sony's apparent bad move is the top selling game God of War being released after the PS3? And finally your claiming they have had lackluster sales, 60+million consoles is lackluster? They have sold only a couple million less then MS, does that mean MS has even more lackluster sales then Sony since there console came out a year earlier? I reallllllly hope your not in charge of any business decisions.
@monson21502 Even though you come across as a 12 year old fanboy troll.. A lot of your points are valid, reasonable, and make a lot of sense. My hats off to you
Both consoles are very good. One has better aspect and vise versa. What really matters is that the games they release especially the exclusives. The answer is buy both consoles. I even have a Wii just for me to be able to play Monster Hunter Tri and Harvest Moon games. Enough with the WAR thing. (:
Even with all the profits maybe you can wave the xbox live costs? Just dont think I should have to pay another fee on top of netflix's fee when other consoles offer it for free. I understand your service is better than the other 2 but I have a home computer for those functions with no cost.... Seems silly to me with your profits MS.
I attribute Microsoft's gaming success to that copy of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood I bought a month ago. You're welcome, Microsoft.
MS played the "smart" game. Sony needed to push and win a format war. It was said by their own exec's including Stringer that the PS3 would win them the blu-ray war and cost them the console war. MS and Nintendo on the other hand went with the tried and true...granted the 360 had heat issues...lets face it MS is a software company but they kept their costs down and did not force things early. MS was never officially HD-DVD...they just did not side with Sony's Blu-Ray. Sony on the other hand is a hardware company but they got carried away. There is no such thing as "future-proof" much less in the ever evolving electronics arena. Building what at the time was arguable a "bleeding-edge" system made it hugely expensive, cost them billions and ultimately resulted in lack luster sales. The other smart move by both Nitty and MS was to discontinue their previous gen systems do developers would switch gears and focus on the new platform...Sony...well they released GOW for the PS2 after the launch of the PS3...that's not how you get developers to follow suit.
Thank you Microsoft for helping the indie developers. The Kinect is an amazing piece of hardware for the PC and I'm happy they embraced it. I look forward to using an official one for the PC.
Good job but we have to admit that the PSN online hacking issue could've contributed towards the rise in 360 sales. Love my 360! :)
Yeah all that money and the department that suspends your LIVE account still doesn't have a phone? I'm gonna put"Have a nice day" on my live motto and still get suspended for pissing off a 12year old and his buddies in a match of gears.
Just more news we already understood. Xbox 360 is dominating this console cycle. It's selling more units. Selling more software and widening the gap.
I could care less about console wars. I'll be the first to say I prefer the PS3 as a console over my 360. The problem is the 360 has the software I want (the mic is better as well, could never find a BT headset that worked with my PS3). I just love ME series and GOW series. Alan Wake and TOV have also been games I've fallen in love with. I could care less about which system is more powerful or has better graphics. The 360 looks amazing to me and it's more then enough for me. If a console wants to win me over it's going to take more then console features and name brand. The most important thing to me is what has the best games. Not the most amount of good games but games that I absolutely need to play over and over again. MS won this gen for me.
Well done Microsoft, hopefully you will invest that money as a reward to your customers for even better console gaming.
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