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Xbox profits revealed in new FTC leak (Update: margins are not operating profit, article was misinformative)

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
People will always find something to complain. Especially on Twitter and Reddit, which are just made up of people whose hobby is to complain about various things.
Sony has streamlined their console building/revisions to where the PS5 became profitable less than a year after launch. Their profit margins will fluctuate as it will this year based on price cuts and marketing investments.
 
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Hudo

Member
Sony has streamlined their console building/revisions to where the PS5 became profitable less than a year after launch. Their profit margins will fluctuate as it will this year based on price cuts and marketing investments.
Good for the shareholders, I guess.

As soon as they invest that surplus of money into making a new Motorstorm, I might contribute to their bottom-line as well! (Closing Evolution Studios was a cardinal sin...)
 

nemiroff

Gold Member
Clearly the article is aimed at people like you.
Article..? There's an article?

mad people GIF
 
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I feel like I'm taking crazy pills looking at this infographic. The methodology is all over the place, it's a mess. The author is calling it "margin" when we are looking at "accountability margin" from Xbox, operating income from Sony, and net income from Nintendo. It doesn't help that Nintendo's financial statements are reported differently in Japan, and Xbox's figures are a complete mystery except for what's released in this leak.

I can't draw conclusions on whatever accountability margin is, could be anything in between gross profit and net income. I'd wager a guess somewhere between gross profit and operating income depending on how they track overhead costs. Probably closer to operating income.

But why are they using Nintendo's net income!? That is an after tax measure when operating income is pre-tax. To show how large of a difference this would be, I decided to do a few quick calcs of my own using Nintendo's public earnings reports. https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/

Confused Rooster Teeth GIF by Achievement Hunter


Operating income = 402,728
Net income = 313,784
(in millions of yen for 9 months, 7/1/22 - 3/31/23)

In USD, these numbers look different. I'll use the average USD x JPY for FY22 from Nintendo's annual earnings report, averaging 135.38 yen to 1 USD.

Operating income = 2,975
Net income = 2,318
(in millions of U.S. dollars for 9 months, 7/1/22 - 3/31/23)

Ok, so it looks like they ARE using the operating income number for Nintendo. So this would be an overall fair comparison, but now I question how the labels match up with the numbers elsewhere.

Confused Thinking GIF


Looking at Nintendo's revenue... at the same 135.38 FX rate that 11,826 from the infographic in USD is 1,601,004 yen. Yet when I look at the 9 months of revenue from 7/1/22 to 3/31/23, Nintendo reported 1,294,217 yen which should translate to 9,560 USD.


Since Nintendo's fiscal year actually ends in March, and I am a huge fan of Occam and his razor, I took a look at full-year revenue for 2022 - it turns out that is 1,601,677. Extremely close to the infographic figure. So this Tweaker used Nintendo's full-year revenue instead of 9 months. Interestingly, that means Nintendo's operating margin was actually 31% during that stretch.

At this point I had wasted 25 minutes on this post and the calcs, so I didn't bother burning any more of my life away verify the Sony data.


TL;DR
George Clooney Reaction GIF


Tweaktown infographic data is no good, both the measures and the data itself are largely bogus. Don't trust gaming/tech journalists to get anything right, especially financial data, just because they write about the industry. If you want reliable data, do the calcs yourself or get them from a trusted source for financials.

And last...

dragons den school GIF by CBC
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Accountability margin %? Never heard of it. I even googled it and didnt see anything. Must be a term that is the same as another but they just call it different. Kind of weird since you'd think they just call it operating margin.

The fact that they DON'T call it that, should lead us to realize it's not "operating margin". They wouldn't be using this phrase if it didn't mean something.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
The fact that they DON'T call it that, should lead us to realize it's not "operating margin". They wouldn't be using this phrase if it didn't mean something.
Eh it could go either way really.

Sometimes companies just choose weird terms to "socialize" internally that differ from something like general accounting practice terms, but mean the same thing.

"Let's not call it Profit, let's call it Accountability because every group is held accountable" or some shit.

OR yeah maybe it's some fuzzy math shit. Who knows?

Based on other emails that leaked Spencer and team discuss this like it's the same as beating Sony's profit margins.

edit: It could be something like this:

 
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Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
FYI - margins are not operating profit, as the title of this thread incorrectly suggests. For example, Contribution Margin does not usually include fixed costs.

This CFO and Financial Analyst explains this whole thing well. Folks who have studied accounting would understand it easily.









 
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graywolf323

Member
FYI - margins are not operating profit, as the title of this thread incorrectly suggests. For example, Contribution Margin does not usually include fixed costs.

This CFO and Financial Analyst explains this whole thing well. Folks who have studied accounting would understand it easily.










it’s really hilarious to see Sage arguing with this guy and calling him dishonest

 
Btw, the author of the article took down that chart.



OP should be updated.


Not sure if he is the one who created that chart, or if he just took it at face value from someone else. Either way, removing it was the right thing to do and while it doesn't absolve the author for including it without due diligence, I am glad to see the public acknowledgement and corrective action.

Hopefully instances like this will encourage better vetting of numbers from publications in the future, but I have a feeling they might care more about the ad traffic it generates. Oh well, VGchartz lives on in our collective hearts!
 
Eh it could go either way really.

Sometimes companies just choose weird terms to "socialize" internally that differ from something like general accounting practice terms, but mean the same thing.

"Let's not call it Profit, let's call it Accountability because every group is held accountable" or some shit.

OR yeah maybe it's some fuzzy math shit. Who knows?

Based on other emails that leaked Spencer and team discuss this like it's the same as beating Sony's profit margins.

edit: It could be something like this:


Even if they believed it did match up with operating margin, there is a simple explanation for why they would call it something different. Their ERP systems will certainly have an operating profit account, and to avoid confusion between that and this unofficial metric, a distinction must be made lest nobody is on the same page when looking at data.

It was either go with Accountability_Margin or BigPhils_Operating_Margin and I know what sounds better to me. Unfortunately they chose the wrong name :p
 

Edgelord79

Gold Member
Eh it could go either way really.

Sometimes companies just choose weird terms to "socialize" internally that differ from something like general accounting practice terms, but mean the same thing.

"Let's not call it Profit, let's call it Accountability because every group is held accountable" or some shit.

OR yeah maybe it's some fuzzy math shit. Who knows?

Based on other emails that leaked Spencer and team discuss this like it's the same as beating Sony's profit margins.

edit: It could be something like this:

Our company is Australian based and they use strange terms just like you are describing.
 

jayj

Banned
Anyone else notice Nintendo's operating profit is as big as both competitors combined?

This is the kind of stuff I think about when people say stuff like "MS could never buy Nintendo...unless Switch 2 flops then who knows". Nintendo can tank an entire generation (and they have). They stash massive cash reserves and make more returns for less work.

It's pretty easy to make profit when you are selling 2013 technology in 2023 with 2017 prices.
 

F0rneus

Tears in the rain
SenjutsuSage haunting us from the grave lol. Guy is literally militant for his favorite plastic box. It's a thing to be a fan of something. But being capable of accepting negative facts about their box thing, is now impossible for some. ITS THE BEST PLASTIC BOX!!!!!
 
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poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
SenjutsuSage haunting us from the grave lol. Guy is literally militant for his favorite plastic box. It's a thing to be a fan of something. But being capable of accepting negative facts about their box thing, is now impossible for some. ITS THE BEST PLASTIC BOX!!!!!
It's pretty much a rule at this point that if someone gets social media engagement because of a view on a divisive topic then their opinions on that topic will get more and more extreme over time.
 
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