| bulletstopper said: Nintendo will lose its crown and if it stays around long enough, will regain it again. It all runs in cycles. The only question is, how long can Microsoft take a loss on it's systems before it calls it quits. |
Microsoft will be in the console business for a long time... They just did an interview with Microsoft's Chief Operating Officer and they're committed to the Xbox platform. In fact here is what they said:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20070817/tc_zd/213589;_ylt=AtAor.m2TkEk_5rg2K4CPFUjtBAF
"Asked about his reaction to the $1 billion in costs Microsoft is picking up to service customer Xboxes, Turner said he was proud that the company was stepping up and taking care of its customers. "We are not a perfect company. We strive for perfection, but we are not perfect, and when we are not perfect we are going to work hard to make it right. So, I'm proud to work for a company that will do the right thing, even when nobody is looking," he said.
But, he said, Microsoft also needed to learn from the experience to ensure that it wouldn't repeat it.
"The financial thing is a bad thing, but affecting customers is a worse thing. That's the foremost thing that I think about from a COO perspective," he said. "This is an area where we are in the hardware business, and we are a software company, so we don't have decades of experience in the hardware business. We are learning as we go in that space, and we still have a lot to learn, so we don't have it completely figured out."
In spite of all these issues, Microsoft remained as committed as ever to the platform, which is a vibrant one for it and an area where the company has worked hard at growing share, he said.
"Now we are going to have to work hard figuring out how to make money in that area. [CEO] Steve [Ballmer] tells me that Windows took eight or nine years to make any money, which no one talks about today. But he reminds me of that all the time. Today everybody just believes it made money from the start, but that was not the case," Turner said."
