Microsoft has released its earnings report for the second quarter of the Financial Year 2013 (i.e. the quarter ending December 31st 2012), and while its overall revenue is up on the same quarter last year – $21,456,000,000 versus last year's $20,885,000,000 – its entertainment and devices division is down. So while Windows and other business ventures are making Microsoft more money than they were last year, the Xbox and other devices (Windows phones, I think) are making less: $3,772,000,000 versus last year's $4,238,000,000 (an 11% drop).
Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean – as Yahoo was stating last month – that Microsoft can't afford to continue with the Xbox brand and is going to have to ditch it. More than seven years since it launched, the Xbox 360 is coming to the end of its life cycle. It's still, Microsoft points out, the bestselling games console in the U.S., but presumably fewer new people are buying them now.
And then, of course, a lot of people are probably waiting for Microsoft to announce the console's successor, with rumours it'll turn up at E3 this year and maybe even go on sale for the holiday period. Why buy a 360 when there could be a 720 right around the corner?