MS as a whole probably will be up.

Xbox division will depend if their 1st party games will rise more on PC than their 3rd party will lower on Xbox... I think they will have more money, but on long term I'm not sure it'll be the better move.

Isn't Microsfot Games Division just all been merged into one and all classed as "Xbox" whether its Windows 10 store sales, Microsoft published titles on steam or hardware/software sales on console.

Compared to what they would have been without cross buy.

XBO Hardware sales/profits will decrease due to PC owners having less reasons to buy.
XBO First party profits will decrease due to PC+XBOX owners opting to buy on W10.
XBO 3rd party profits will decrease due to players shifting more to PC and buying on Steam.
Gold subscriber profits will decrease due to not needing Gold on PC.

W10 First party profits will increase due to PC+XBOX owners preferring games on PC and non XBOX owners buying on PC.
W10 3rd party profits will increase due to increased exposure to the W10 app store.
Online player bases for games may increase, which might increase first party sales on XBO and W10 as the games have longer legs.



From that it's just a question of which pros and cons have the strongest impact.

Isn't Xbox One S launching around the same time? I suspect profits will be up both on hardware and software

Glad I could allow you to be represented!

Seriously? Why would I want to buy an xbox when I can play their games, in far superior form, on pc (where I can play it on desktop, stream to tv, or take on the go with laptop)? Consoles are appealing because of exclusives. I am a Nintendo fanatic, yet if they had all their games on pc as well, of course I'd buy them on pc (permitting I couldl use their controller).

Profits for the gaming division, of course. They have to find it worth it to be in otherwise they wouldn't be here, so if they find it worth it we can look at it too.

Well, I never bought a XBOX, because I wanted the exlusives it had. Now they could get a sale from me. If people acted like me. The sales will go up. Hardware won't really change.

99.8% of the games released on Xbox One / PS4 are multiplats anyway. It is ridiculous to assume 0.2% will have THE GREAT effect on hardware sales. It is not like the game won't be able on the Xbox One - it just will be on PC as well.

I plan to buy a new PC once Warcraft 4 will be released (a man can dream, right?). It will be super cool to have a gaming library on PC from the start, because I bought Scalebound, Halo Wars 2, Gears of War 4 and a couple more on Xbox One already.

Stop acting like playing on PC excludes playing on a console for every gamer in the world and vice versa.

- There will always be people playing on PC and hardcore only PC. MS could not sell them a console anyway. Now they sell them their software.
- There will always be people playing on console and hardcore console only. They would not care about the PC anyway.
- There are mainly PC players who play consoles every now and then. MS could sell them the Xbox One, because the games they buy for it come with a free copy for their main gaming platform as well. Not a bad selling point.
- There are mainly console players who play on PC every now and then (Like myself). MS could sell them the Xbox One, because the games they buy come with a free copy for their PCs. If they have a powerful enough PC to play them and all their achievements, save games, friends list, etc. will already be there. 

The only part of the market MS might not cater to are the "PC players that buy a console to play 3-4 games that are 100% exclusive for this one console and don't play anything else on it." According to that logic Nintendo is the console of choice for this group.

The benefits / pros for MS and the consumer / gamer easily outweight the cons here.

I think sales will be relatively flat or lower than the same time period last year. Hardware will likely be lower because of scorpio and xbox one s.