Xbox 360 riding on losses!!

The brand new gaming console from Microsoft, the Xbox 360, is incurring them a loss of about $150 per premium unit sold, reports c|net. The research firm iSuppli stripped down a premium version unit to analyse the manufacturing & testing costs of the gaming console and estimated it at $552.27 per unit, as against its sale price of $399 per unit. So that’s a loss of about 40% per unit which Microsoft is bearing, in its attempt to overthrow Sony & claim the top spot in the $10 billion US video game market. The Xbox 360 will compete with Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Revolution, both of which are due in 2006.

Generally game console makers like Microsoft, Sony & Nintendo cover up on their loss on sales of units by publishing their own game titles & collecting a fee on game titles meant for their consoles by other publishers. But there’s one who’s making some real $$ from these Gaming Console Wars, & that’s IBM which will be laughing all the way to bank, as its chips power all three of the major game consoles!! Earlier Xbox was powered by Intel, but now that Microsoft have introduced the IBM chip in Xbox 360, IBM is the real gainer who has its cash registers ringing day & night with each unit sold, so no matter how much any of the console sells, IBM will make money nevertheless!!