| couchmonkey said: Well, MS is not exactly short on cash, it's just trying to put on a show for investors to justify the continuation of the Xbox brand in the face of PS3's relative failure this generation. At this point it would take a minor miracle for PS3 to become a true set-top box threat to PC, which is one of MS' main reasons for entering the market. So the Xbox division is trying to justify its ongoing existance by making a profit for a change. If PS3 suddenly started performing a lot better, MS would respond, don't doubt it. As it stands, Nintendo is lucky that MS doesn't really seem too serious about competing with Wii. |
Microsoft is doing what they can within reason. Their investors are going to let them throw money out of the window to the tune of over $6,000,000,000 so far, and they've missed it time and again when they said they'd be profitable. One thing that's clear is that Microsoft is very far from the Xbox brand giving them a profit overall, and the first step in that direction is a profitable year. They want to show investors that they can take that first step, and if they can, investors could reason they may only be half a decade from recovering their huge losses so far.
There is almost nothing MS could do it make the 360 outsell the Wii right now. Microsoft knows this, so they've redefined their race from "the Wii can't compete because it is laughably weak" to "oh snap, they're virtually assured to end up ahead of us so let's say that our only competition is Sony, then say that Sony does nothing but video games whereas we are well diversified."
Of course, reality is the opposite of what Microsoft has said (Sony is far more profitably diverse than Microsoft), but Microsoft is trying to convince investors. Perception is very important.
