Uh oh, you better take a seat, pull up your big boy fanboy panties, strap in real tight, take some metamucil and prepare for the news: Microsoft shipped a total of 3.9 million Xbox One SKUs (stock keeping units) to retailers in the last quarter, but only sold 3 million.
The news might make some fanboys stretch the inseam of their pants with an unwelcoming organic stream from an unpopular orifice of an odorous nature, but overall Microsoft did rather well on the business front... save for those 900,000 Xbox One Units still sitting at your local Walmarts, Best Buys, Targets and Toys 'R Us stores.
According to Microsoft's quarterly results for Q2 2014, they managed to ship a total of 7.9 million Xbox brand SKUs, including 3.5 million Xbox 360 units.
As previously noted, the Micro 'S' has actually won over the United States of America with the Xbox One, showing that national pride is still strong in the consumer sector. Alternatively, some individuals have suggested that the Xbox One sold strongly in America due to the stock shortages of the PlayStation 4. But if we're willing to go out on a limb and ignore reality, pretend capitalism works, and that Wall Street investors have the best intentions in mind for the overhaul health and growth of the fiscal economy, well then it's easy to believe that the Xbox won America... in sales.
Nevertheless, Microsoft posted a profit in the second quarter of $6.5 billion, up $200 million from the $6.3 billion of the previous year. Their overall revenue was $24.5 billion for the end of their second quarter, up $3 billion from the previous year.
In simple terms: Microsoft made a heck of a lot of money, and despite all the negative press they still made a heck of a lot of money.
Still, I don't think this is a fair assessment of their financial prowess in the video game sector.
The company is coming off a huge holiday season rush from the launch of their third generation home entertainment console and aimed to garner lots of support from their core demographic. In other words, impatient fanboys flocked out to buy the console because it was new.
Right now, Sony is riding on the same hype train for the PS4, trying to cater hard to the neckbeards and basement dwellers for their first adopters; but the real challenge is when the consoles have to sell through this dry spell of winter leading toward the big releases of spring. There are no big games out for either console and the initial fanboy brigade already have their console.
January and February's NPD and other market research results will be a real sight to behold, because following the YouTube-gate XB1M13 scandal and the continued negative Xbox One propaganda being spread around, it will make for a fascinating display of marketing wits from Microsoft in order to continue to move the console with no new software until Titanfall arrives.
The system is set to receive indie games this March, but no new details have been unveiled about the games or whether or not they're the sort of games that could actually maintain sales momentum for the hardware. More than anything, Microsoft will need to hunker down and get serious about resurrecting the prestige of the Xbox brand by actually focusing on giving gamers what they want.
