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Nem on 15 February 2014
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vivster said:
Nem said:


Indeed things could change a bit if Microsoft was willing to take losses to stay competitive. But, if reports are accurate the new CEO is already under fire to kill the Xbox, Bing and Surface. The board wont be pleased with taking more losses on the Xbox business. And thats where the problem is for the Xbox. The console business just isnt as appealing to Microsoft as their B2B.

So, do i expect thing to stay the way they are? Yes, i do. Because the only chance for them in europe is to be priced below the PS4, and that would mean taking losses. The only i see on their hand is to unbundle the kinect and match the price of the PS4. Thats basically all they can do. But i dont think its enough to revert the situation.

Your combination of over estimating the PS4 and under estimating the X1 form a distorted picture of the situation. MS will not discontinue the Xbox. It's not like it has to. Their finances are stable and in a continuous up trend, like they always are. The gaming division is such a small part of the company. The new CEO so far hasn't shown any intention of losing any division. Share holders talk a lot of stuff but that doesn't necessarily result in actions. See Nintendo. The consumer business is important to MS, no matter how much the investors ignore it.

MS still has all the chances to take NA. They don't need to rule the european market to stay profitable. From this year on it could go either way. I don't expect any game droughts from any of the consoles but MS still has the chance to hit it off with the casuals while the PS4 hype slowly dies off. Or of course the momentum of the PS4 could be too big and swallow X1 sales. I would never write off the X1 though. What MS has done with the 360 is a feat comparable to what Sony did with the PS1. Penetrating and winning a believed closed market. Of course it did so with major help from the PS3. So the same Situation like it is now, just reversed.

There is like a 30% chance that this gen won't be completely dominated by the PS4. Too big to ignore.


As you say that, rumors that Microsoft is in talks with amazon to sell the Xbox division come up. I think you are ignoring something that is clear. Microsoft doesnt want to lose more money on the Xbox, and at this pace, they will have to.

Microsoft gets into businesses to win and the fact is they cant win in the games market. Yeah they can get profitable when they manage to 1-up Sony at the start, but that isnt the case anymore. This market is a bad investment for them. They would be better off investing on a different market for the ammount of money they have to throw at it.