(Business Perspective) Does MS really need Xbox Hardware?

[Machiavellian]

So let me get this straight. Azz when exactly do you believe MS should leave the hardware business. Looking at your reply to Ryuu none of that seems plausible anytime soon.

First you say that GP will negate what MS makes selling their own games on their own hardware. The license fees they make from 3rd party games published on their hardware and also the sales cut they received for games sold on their hardware. I mean that is a lot of faith in GP to be able to sustain such sales alone when you know other publishers also have not been able to make anywhere close to what MS makes currently.

Next you state that if Sony doesn't allow GP on their platform, someone else will which mind you seems pretty far fetch since there isn't anyone else. Nintendo, well there is no reason for Nintendo to support GP any more than Sony. If that was the case Nintendo would be support other cloud platforms on their system its not like they owe MS anything and if MS services directly compete with their cloud services it really doesn't make sense. So who else can MS go to allow their games on console.

So we come to MS putting GP on every device that can play games. Well you can already pretty much do that now with GP since MS allows you to run GP from a browser. What is the metric of GP growth since MS open GP up to the browser. That means pretty much everyone can run GP on Android and Iphone today.

You seem to have a lot of faith in GP which mind you so do I but GP currently isn't close to being a service that can stand alone. Even if every TV supports GP today, it still would not be close to enough to build GP up to the number of subs required to sustain the service without hardware. Even in the best of circumstances, running XCloud requires a really good internet connection. I know this for a fact because I have Gigabit internet and while much slower games run fine from GP, fast past games exhibit all kinds of micro blocking, artifacts and inconsistent fps.

Also everyone isn't paying for that Gigabit internet connection in the US so I doubt its that much supported around the world. With the best cloud platform today which is GeForce Now, how much is Nvidia raking in from their service. It just seems like you magic answer to everything is GP will make it all better. Also, no one is paying 15 bucks a month for GP with first party games only. The output would be way to small. Even 20 studios probably isn't hitting enough diversity to make GP a viable option. Also MS needs enough must have games just to get people to want GP on their own hardware let alone on any other platform.