BOOM! Alan Wake for PC canned

[vlad321]

Alby_da_Wolf said:

vlad321 said:

Alby_da_Wolf said:

vlad321 said:

Lord Flashheart said:
I think he's implying that the xbox can become a big part off their revenue and company just like the playstation is for sony not that it will overtake their core os and software business.

More or less right. By promoting gaming on the 360 more than the PC (one of the few true incentives to use WIndows over alternatives), they will certainly lose some marketshare of their OS/Office profits. The question is if they will make it up with their EDD profits. As I said earlier, a 1% drop in their Client division would have to have the EDD go up by 25% for it to balance out. Somehow I don't think that will happen at all.

There is a third possibilty: if they know their Client division will lose market share anyway, gaming or not, they MUST grow in other markets. So these moves could mean they already know that despite still growing in absolute numbers, Windows and Office are shrinking, or are going to, in market share.

BTW, another big business opportunity, cellphone market, was already slipping from their hands even before Google's Android made Linux+Java even stronger, as it was already second after Symbian, with iPhone and Blackberry already chewing more and more shares from Windows CE/Mobile. So pushing consoles could also be meant to make up for phones lost opportunity, knowing that Win+Office share won't grow again anymore to achieve the same compensation, a fourth possibility.

 

Then they must be doing a pretty bad job. The revenue of EDD is half of OS/Office. Yet the profit is 1/40th. If anything they really need to figure out how to drive down costs.

Just like Sony, MS didn't predict Nintendo huge comeback (but it could predict HW problems it had rushing XB360 release). It focused all its plans on hitting Sony as hard as possible, but Nintendo stole its thunder reaping almost all the fruits MS wanted for itself. Then the crisis slowedthe market down enough to prevent MS from widening the gap from Sony too much.

Anyhow, yes, when MS can use its monstrous financial strength, but not its prevailing position or near monopolies, it's not so strong, it hit Sony seriously, but not deadly, and results are puny compared to the efforts. And as Sony wasn't hit deadly, now it has the opportunity for a comeback too, although smaller than Nintendo's, and this time knowing more MS tactics (it's quite evident in most of recent Sony actions).

OTOH, Nintendo got awesome results with big creative efforts, but little financial ones, and what's more funny, it's not trying to hit anyone by any means, it just invented a brand new market, kept the share it had in the old one and the overall result is huge. Not focusing on hitting a foe, like MS does, but just minding its business, Nintendo doesn't divert resources from its main goals, MS does because it's paranoically contorted and always devises its plans with a by-end, usually hitting competitors, this, if it even works, can easily damage the main goal, while Nintendo's way gives the desired results and can sometimes hurt competitors as a side effect, sometimes else not affect them at all, but the thing is not actively sought at main goal's expenses.

Being forced to fight MS, though, Sony too won't be able to get the same results as Nintendo.

 

I fully understand what MS is trying to do and what they were hoping to do. I also understand their OS/Office marketshare will drop by itself, however doing what they are diong now does not seem to be the best decision. I mean, a Windows7+Office07 (soon to be '10) costs, at the least, as much as the most expensive SKUs out there. That means that for every Xbox sold they must have given up, in a best case scenario, one person who buys a Windows+Office. Somehow, I don't believe that to be true, and remember that's the best case scenario for them.