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Nuvendil on 05 March 2015
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super6646 said:
Nuvendil said:

I think this is quite possible. There have always been a lot of people in MS who disliked the Xbox product line because the brand, as a whole over its lifetime, has never been profitable, despite instances of profit at different points. One major force behind the persistence of Xbox I think was the vision originally put forward by Bill Gates of the smart, fully connected home with a hub acting as the nerve center. I think Xbox was meant to head in that direction, becoming a hub rather than just a gaming device. But with those elements of Xbox One failing to impress and more and more multimedia features being absorbed into smart TVs, I think MS is about ready to give up on the hub notion. With those two points in mind, there may be a sentiment in the upper echelon that staying in the hardware business serves no practical purpose. A lot of people wave off the losses Xbone is causing with the reasoning that MS is wealthy and can absorb the losses so it's not a big deal. The truth is the opposite: MS is wealthy and stable today because throughout their history they have considered sustained losses in departments a very big deal. I think we just may be at a tipping point for the bosses at MS where Xbox is concerned.

Bad move. It'd make Sony a monopoly in the gaming market (Nintendo has pretty much lost it as least for now). The real reason Microsoft came into the market was to crush Sony. It came close last gen, but now its just a running buddy. And at this point there's no point in selling off or spinning off the Xbox division. Sure they'd make a bit more $$$ here and there, but that only really matters to investors, and to consumers its kinda a backstab. Anyway so no I don't think Microsoft will leave the market for a LONG time!

Who do you think runs MS?  Investors, shareholders, people with a vested interest in the company's wellbeing as a business venture.  And MS didn't enter the console market to crush Sony, please.  They entered it because they believed there was some long term profitibility for them as a company.  But if the Xbox One continues to make losses upon losses, the people with the money and power in the company are going to be less inclined to believe in that long term vision.

And as for consumers, the Xbox console line represents only a fraction of consumers MS caters to.  And most of those consumers would still do business with MS.  Windows, Word and the other Office software, and so on are not going to suddenly be replaced by Linux and the like because they "betrayed" their gaming audience.  The reality is that there's no point in *keeping* the Xbox product line.  Sure, they'll keep the brand on PC and other platforms as a means of PR, but the product line serves no purpose from a business sense.  And that's what MS is, a business, with far more concerns than "winning" a console war that is costing them money. 

And I don't think they'll sell off the product line or brand.  I doubt many companies would want it unless it came with Halo, Gears, Forza, their associated studios, and so on.  The brand, without those, has no value to anyone. 

On a final note, I believe that the potential death of the Xbox product line in no way indicates the death of full blown dedicated gaming hardware.  There will always be a demographic who wants to own their product, fully and completely, without being tethered to some service; who want a wall of segregation between their gaming and other aspects of their technological lives.  If anything, I think consoles will tend towards a more specialized approach in the next gen or two, with the devices being more focused on gaming and slowly shedding a number of their peripheral functions that are being absorbed into smart devices and smart tvs.  It will never be as simplistic as the GameCube I don't think, but it will streamline down to something targeted at that audience specifically.  This is similar to how paper books sales have stabalized and even resurged:  there's a demographic who wants that physical media, segregated from other parts of their lives.  Consumer desires drive the market, and so long as a large audience desires them, consoles are here to stay.