| Machiavellian said: You kind of get me wrong, its not for my sake if MS stays or leave the console space. I have never dependent on MS having a console, this is just my opinion of the market and MS business moves. I have all the consoles and a damn good gaming PC. I never need any of these console OEM to stay in the market. I am just a gamer who enjoys games and I purchase the systems that allows me to do so. 1) You keep looking at MS selling at a loss for each console but you need to look at the total operating cost, revenue and profits MS make in the console space. MS can make money selling on PC and Xbox consoles because the 2 customer base are actually different. MS cannot get the full benefit of their store if they do not sell a console meaning everything they sell on their store including 1st, 2nd and 3rd party games they get their cut. While MS could definitely get more sells by being fully multiplatform, as I stated, they have multiple ways of bringing in money but you do not keep consumers into your ecosystem better than having your own hardware. 2) Its interesting that you brought up Valve because did Valve not bring out their own hardware and talked about years of bringing out their own Steam Machine. I just do not believe you truly understand how much MS make on having their hardware even at 3rd place. MS is second in profits even thought they are 3rd in revenue. |
1) The loss on each console and the money they make back is decent however by having a console in the market, they restrict themselves on quadrupling their software sales. Remember the money is made in the software not the hardware. They can't sell enough consoles to please shareholders, so they start dipping some titles on other platforms to stay relevant. However, the more they dip, the more they cannibalize their own hardware. They can't do both, time will tell as future generations exist that you will start seeing less and less Xbox consoles because customers start waking up realizing they can access both libraries of games instead of just one if they brought the other platform, meanwhile to MS, the future is Digital.
2) Valve were already the market leader before the Steam Machine idea. My reasoning as to why Valve wanted to dip into the console market was due to Microsoft. This was at a time when Microsoft and Valve weren't on good terms. MS wanted to push Windows PC Store. Valve saw this as a possible threat since MS own Windows, and probably saw the idea of "If MS want to compete with our market, will compete in theirs." Steam machines failed, just like Stadia because there just is no room in the console space. We are already seeing the 3rd player trying to find other avenues to sell games and the push of Xbox on PCs as the example.
Last edited by Azzanation - on 16 February 2024
