Nobody questions the viability of Microsoft’s Xbox business anymore. The company generates billions of dollars a year and healthy profits in the video game business. But back in the early years, the picture was bleak. Microsoft lost around $5 billion to $7 billion in the first four years of the Xbox business. That period of “investment” had to happen before the business started humming with the 2005 introduction of the second-generation Xbox 360.
Robbie Bach, former chief Xbox officer of Microsoft.
That lesson, which former chief Xbox officer Robbie Bach will impart to our audience at the GamesBeat Summit next week, is important for the virtual reality industry to remember. Market researcher TrendForce estimates that VR will grow from $7 billion today to $70 billion in 2020. Tech adviser Digi-Capital estimates VR will hit $30 billion by 2020, and augmented reality will hit $90 billion. That kind of hype will keep the dreamers and the investors going.
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Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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