NPD December 2011

Well it was a serious question, there is a lot of stuff in EDD, but not a lot of revenue generators. I admit it's even more skewed than I had thought it might be, but the only thing I could think might generate any serious revenue is windows phone and it hasn't been doing all that well from reports.
 
What in there do you think is making a pile of revenue? Windows phone?
Xbox revenues rose by $322M or 9% YOY. Figure it out yourself.
Even if at the moment WP7 is not generating a lot of money and generating losses, they won't be giving it up anytime soon - it's too tied to their core business that they could not give it another go. Microsoft has no cash flow problems, they can afford and justify pumping money into phone/tablet software and online services. Altough better management with vision to do more than catch up to what competition is already doing. Some innovation would be welcome, that's what won the console audience over. ;)

Besides WP7 is a solid product, I like it more than Android based phones, it should be successful enough eventually.
Their US NPD 4th Q sales were only up YoY quite modestly though, along the lines of 7%, so to ship so much more than last 4Q (~30%) suggests a bit of over shipment likely to me. Possibly to be reflected in low 1st Q 12 shipments.

Still it looks like they were in line to justify the shipments until December NPD flopped.
Q3 shipments were lower than in 2010, it's possible that they had to restock more early in the last quarter than the year before and probably retail ordered a lot more consoles after the fantastic Black Friday. I doubt there's any significant overabundance of 360s in stores and things will be rolling out as usual in 2012.
 
What's most interesting is that EDD is now the fastest growing division within MS, despite being saddled with an underperforming Windows Phone line. Said phone product line and perhaps other R&D probably explains why operating income dropped more sharply (~21% decrease) than revenue increased (~15% increase).

Regards,
SB
According to Geekwire:
Microsoft cited a variety of factors for that decline in E&D profits, including the cost of integrating Skype following the completion of that acquisition, payments made to Nokia related to Windows Phone strategic initiatives, higher Xbox Live royalty costs, and a higher mix of Xbox 360 hardware sales vs. software, which takes a toll on the company’s profit margins.
Last year a lot of the software sales were Kinect titles published by Microsoft, and developed by Microsoft owned studios. Much higher profit margin on those...
 
So the entire rest of EDD only had 340m earnings? Can that be right??

Aselto seems to be pulling information from this (http://forum.beyond3d.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=1613825 ) which doesn't match MS' quarterly statement in anyway.

Code:
Division            - MS    - Article
Windows + Live      - 4.73B - 5.05B
EDD                 - 4.24B - 3.90B

The quote in question

That's more or less about the same as last year, when it racked up a $6.66 billion profit on $19 billion in revenue -- and while the numbers look stable and Redmond managed to slightly beat estimates, things are changing fast underneath the bottom line: strong Kinect and Xbox 360 sales drove Entertainment and Devices Division revenue up 55 percent to $3.6 billion, but Windows and Windows Live revenue fell nearly 30 percent to $5.05 billion.

The 3.9B is clearly for EDD. I haven't got a clue where Engadget are pulling their numbers from. Likewise their combined revenue (19.95B) doesn't match the MS statement (20.89B) either. At least their profit number matches the net income number.

[edit] OK, I found where Endgadget screwed up. They didn't. Aselto did by referencing an article about FY 2011 Q2 instead of FY 2012 Q2. :p Bah I wasted all that time typing all that stuff. :D Shame on me for not looking at the date of the article before writing all that.

Last year a lot of the software sales were Kinect titles published by Microsoft, and developed by Microsoft owned studios. Much higher profit margin on those...

Yeah, I've noticed that while Hardware has grown a fair bit, software hasn't followed suite. But I think there's a few things influencing that. Some of the big Kinect titles being sold for ~25 USD for a bit surely didn't help the revenue or income line. Likewise, with the economy the way it is, I suspect more used software was purchased this holiday season than last.

I still think some underperforming product lines are pulling down EDD income, but either way it's still impressive numbers overall. The Nokia associated costs could be lumped in with that as it was a move to bolster flagging WP7 sales.

Regards,
SB
 
Aselto seems to be pulling information from this (http://forum.beyond3d.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=1613825 ) which doesn't match MS' quarterly statement in anyway.

Code:
Division            - MS    - Article
Windows + Live      - 4.73B - 5.05B
EDD                 - 4.24B - 3.90B

The quote in question



The 3.9B is clearly for EDD. I haven't got a clue where Engadget are pulling their numbers from. Likewise their combined revenue (19.95B) doesn't match the MS statement (20.89B) either. At least their profit number matches the net income number.

[edit] OK, I found where Endgadget screwed up. They didn't. Aselto did by referencing an article about FY 2011 Q2 instead of FY 2012 Q2. :p Bah I wasted all that time typing all that stuff. :D Shame on me for not looking at the date of the article before writing all that.
I don't understand anything from your rant, but I did not screw anything up. I took the number from just released financial report:
Three months ended December 31, 2011 compared with three months ended December 31, 2010
EDD revenue increased primarily reflecting higher Xbox 360 platform revenue as well as Skype revenue from the date of acquisition. Xbox 360 platform revenue grew $322 million or 9%, led by increased volumes of Xbox 360 consoles sold and higher Xbox LIVE revenue, offset in part by lower volumes of standalone Kinect sensors sold. We shipped 8.2 million Xbox 360 consoles during the second quarter of fiscal year 2012, compared with 6.3 million Xbox 360 consoles during the second quarter of fiscal year 2011.

EDD operating income decreased reflecting higher operating expenses, offset in part by revenue growth. Cost of revenue grew $461 million or 19% primarily due to higher volumes of Xbox 360 consoles sold, payments made to Nokia related to joint strategic initiatives, Skype cost of revenue, and higher royalty costs resulting from an increase in Xbox LIVE digital marketplace third-party content sold. Research and development expenses increased $101 million or 37%, primarily reflecting higher headcount-related expenses, including Skype headcount. Sales and marketing expenses increased $94 million or 27%, primarily reflecting higher headcount-related expenses, including Skype headcount, and amortization of acquired Skype intangibles.
So yeah, it's $3.9B for Xbox in the last quarter
http://www.microsoft.com/global/investor/RenderingAssets/Downloads/FY12/Q2/MSFT_FY12Q2_10Q.docx.
 
Yep aselto's math is solid.

$322M is 9% of $3578M and $3578M+$322M is $3.9B

$322M was specified as 360 platform growth so all the pieces are there.
 
Microsoft cited a variety of factors for that decline in E&D profits, including the cost of integrating Skype following the completion of that acquisition, payments made to Nokia related to Windows Phone strategic initiatives, higher Xbox Live royalty costs, and a higher mix of Xbox 360 hardware sales vs. software, which takes a toll on the company’s profit margins.

Who are they paying royalties to?
 
I figured they had to pay for the hundreds of TV Shows I purchase.

That'd only work if they were losing money on the TV shows you bought AFAIK. Are they paying game companies when people use Xbox Live or something such as Call of Duty?
 
That'd only work if they were losing money on the TV shows you bought AFAIK. Are they paying game companies when people use Xbox Live or something such as Call of Duty?

Wow.

Yeah, MS probably caved to Kotick. It is hard to imagine a game series being as dominant as COD has been and continues to be, but here it is years later and the train keeps on chugging and building steam (no pun intended).

Hopefully long-term agreements haven't taken place.

Fads come and go.
 

Ah, gotcha.

That'd only work if they were losing money on the TV shows you bought AFAIK. Are they paying game companies when people use Xbox Live or something such as Call of Duty?

Eh? No. There are royalties associated with many things. Perhaps the share of revenue generated from the sale and rental of video's through Xbox Live has gone up. Revenue remains the same but operating income goes down at that point. Doesn't mean they are losing money on those shows, just means they are making less profit at the same revenue number.

Some of the Xbox Gold features also carried an associated royalty cost. We don't know how much, if any, royalties MS is paying to Hulu, HBO, ESPN, Bravo, Dailymotion, FiOS TV, etc. I'm assuming if the Gold membership service also requires paid service from those providers that it probably doesn't require royalty payments from MS, but it's hard to say.

It's certainly within their rights to require MS to pay them some sort of royalty to use their service on the Xbox Live service, especially if they are big enough that they don't need MS to advertise their service (HBO or ESPN for example). Whether they do or not is up to each individual company. And MS pays for that through revenue generated by the Gold membership fee.

Others are obviously royalty free (BBC public broadcast for example) as they are on the Silver membership level.

Regards,
SB
 
No, it works if the profit margin is lower, but still positive.

I would also imagine now that Music Videos are included in Zune Pass that the royalties each time one is played has probably driven some of that...depending how many people even use the feature.
 
Who are they paying royalties to?

I was told it's the payment to 3rd party publishers or developers if the game is published by MS. MS doesn't just add up the net profit as revenue, they count all the money earned from a digital sale as one total, and record the portion for 3rd parties as royalties.
 
I was told it's the payment to 3rd party publishers or developers if the game is published by MS. MS doesn't just add up the net profit as revenue, they count all the money earned from a digital sale as one total, and record the portion for 3rd parties as royalties.

This certainly makes sense for things like Games on Demand and XBLA but I certainly believe their media offerings are similar and nothing has grown like entertainment media options/offerings.
 
Microsoft is paying money to at least some publishers whose games are popular on Xbox Live like Activision.

Why?

This certainly makes sense for things like Games on Demand and XBLA but I certainly believe their media offerings are similar and nothing has grown like entertainment media options/offerings.

I would imagine that this applies to every digital item sold on Live (movies/TV, games, avatar items, etc).

Unless I'm misunderstanding your post here...:oops:
 
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