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Hardstuck-Platinum said:
Kyuu said:

Playstation made $17 billion from software last fiscal year. Assuming 2 billion were from 1st party content leaves $15 billion of taxable 3rd party revenue. 30% of that would be $4.5 billion.

While we don't have access to MS's full data, we're able to make logical extrapolations that get us reasonably close to the undisclosed numbers. Playstation making $4.5 billion from taxes implies that Xbox made $1-1.5 billion in the same period. Xbox-PC + GamePass will significantly reduce their 3rd party income. We don't need Microsoft's data to accept that the 30% cut is very important.

Well, of course it's better to have console success and 30% taxable revenue streams on your platform. The thing is, to attempt that business model means your competing against Sony and Nintendo and Phil Spencer has said exactly these words. 

"we are not trying to out-console Sony or Nintendo"

"We are no longer trying to bring over players from other platforms to Xbox" 

The sales are getting worse and worse for Xbox and whilst they still have some third party revenue, with the sales they have that revenue is very quickly going to stop because the XBSS/X are now selling much worse than Xbone did in it's final year before it was discontinued. There is no way that developers are going to keep supporting a platform that is selling like XBSS/X is and MS know that. The only thing they can do is to make it work for them in a way where they are not dependant on hardware selling for Xbox App/Gamepass to be successful and that's what they're doing. Phil spencer has said himself they are finished with the standard console business models so why should we ignore him?

Phil and co's decisions are what kept damaging the Xbox brand. But the platform still does generate a respectable amount of money. As long as porting is easy, there would be no reason for most developers to stop supporting Xbox even if future hardware sells less than 20 million. Software revenue being under a third of what Playstation generates is not small money! Even 10% of that wouldn't be small enough to most 3rd party publishers who wish to maximize their software sales. Xbox's 3rd party support is arguably better than ever (ignoring the lack of exclusives, which is an industry wide thing).

Having "traditional" Xbox around also means that Xbox Game Studios will save 30% for every copy sold on Xbox, which is not insignificant. I just don't think traditional Xbox is weak enough to justify killing. Perhaps they were losing more money on hardware than I thought.