Despite the Xbox One’s launch in November and the lack of exclusives revealed since E3, the Xbox 360 is still going strong. At the recent Citi Global Technology Conference, Xbox chief marketing and strategy officer Yusuf Mehdi stated that the console will last until 2016 and see 100 new game launches before being phased out.
“We’re going to continue to invest in Xbox 360, and the two devices can work in concert. So it’s not like the day we ship Xbox One your 360 won’t work. We’ll continue to support it.”
As for whether the Xbox One would be as profitable, Mehdi stated, “You’ve seen us over the years constantly be focused on profitability and improving year over year. There are different points in the cycle of when you invest in new hardware. If you look at 360 that platform lasted for seven to eight years and it’s going to go for another three years. It’s incredibly profitable now in the tail. Some of these things take some time in the launch year in which you invest, and then they they play out over time.
“We’ve seen our Xbox Live subscription service continue to grow. We’re up to 48 million members now. We’re shipping more games than we’ve ever done before. Those are things I look to to say, ‘hey we can grow not just top line revenue but also profitability.’”
Stay tuned for later today when the Xbox One’s release date, currently slated for November, is revealed today.
