sigh.....you three really make me sad.  Sales comes in to make sure that this is turned into a dick measuring contest and then the two of you seal the deal...

You were doing so well just keeping to explanations of how this isn't as bad as some make it sound, Kowen.  You got close to turning this into a dick measuring contest between Sony and MS again but you didn't.  

Given the site, and my tunnel vision for only 2 gaming companies, I am naturally curious to compare tablet sales of MS and Sony.

Frankly its unfair to single us out like that when we are but a minority fanbase on here bringing up opposing viewpoints to threads that would normally put someone like myself on the defensive. There are few threads I can brag about....and now im "sad".

You can easily tell microsoft bad decisions by the increasing number of writeoff the company is taking in order to perserve its crumbling monopoly.

aQuantive $6 billion dollars
Kin 500 million
Surface tablets $900 million
Not even close to break even on Online services (Bing)

Next will be their writeoff of Skype because there will be no way the company will ever see any ROI from an 8 billion dollars spent on this deal for what a is essentially a free piece of software.

In a lot of growth areas where Microsoft shows no monopoly power its being dominated by Google and Apple, couple that with slowing PC sales and slowing government purchases...I see why the stock is down 11%

The RT version shouldn't have existed in the first place. The pro is the only model that will get anyone's interest lower the price of that and scrap the useless RT version.

Your bar for that is way too low though because you just see people as being from factions, and regardless of what the subject is the retaliation to someone from the Sony side saying "oh yeah this is a failure" is to try to bring up Sony's failures as a deflection.  All because you just see people as being in camps.

It's exactly like the post you had in the TLOU thread.  You see it as perfectly reasonable and on its face it is, but others see it as prodding because of the camp they see you as being a member of and the tone they assume the post comes along with.  But if you want people to stop assuming that you're part of that camp you have to stop retaliating as though you are.  A topic like this should never be dealt with by saying "oh yeah well Sony's financials are way worse so :P" it should be dealt with like you were.

Sales is basically a lost cause, don't know that I've ever seen a post from him I'd call good, but you're a good poster who's just a little defensive and reactionary.  I understand that it's tough to be a minority on the site as an MS fan, but you shouldn't let that turn you into exactly what you dislike from some of the Sony fans.  

Its a good thing you dont run a company if you are constantly touting past successes.  Microsoft is a tier 1 company, it is widely owned by many institutions, investors, funds, mom and pop investors.  The numbers yesterday have already caused brokage houses  (two of them) to lower their rating and many brokage houses cut back their forward projections for the company, stock wise and earnings wise.  You have to be pretty naive not to see their fundamental business is declining.  Windows 8 just came out and y/y windows growth is down 6%,  that is alarming. You can tout all the numbers you want, tout their ytd stock price, but this is a definate red flag and its good to see sane people rise above the noise you seem to be spitting out.

That's a very fair point, and I think the forums in general are far too plagued with this reactionary always "diligently watching the Eastern front" war type of behavior.  It happened in the thread on TLOU when you made a relatively inocuous statement that turned into a huge mess simply because people read into it as an attack rather than just a post.  Been talking to Yo_John on the staff chat and maybe it'd be good to make a thread talking about this tendency and some rules to try and curb it a bit.  Suppose maybe being more harsh on what's seen as off topic could work.  Not sure, but I'll talk to the other mod staff about it and see what they think.  

I am going to give you guys a hint about MS.  Do not buy their first product and do not think because the first product did not do so great that it will remain that way.  MS usually is in certain markets for the long haul and usually their first product is to get something on the market.  After that is when they put their real effort into making something competitive.  This has been MS MO for a long time and I am surpise no one has noticed.

The way Microsoft can just shrugg off these huge losses is...fascinating to say the least....it is pretty impressve that they can just loose close to a Billion $ in 3 months and.... just move on! ...Oh I wish Nintendo was this save and not only dependant on their videogames...

So how do you people account for the fact that MS has increase revenue and profits even with writeoffs each year.  Its all well and good to read just a snippet of a report but if you read the whole thing you will see MS has increase revenue and profits from the previous year by a pretty good amount.  Its really sad when forum posters make comments about things they have no real understanding on and also do not know how a certain business makes their money.

Look at the whole report and you will see that each major area MS compete they have gained profit and revenue.  This does not sound like a company that is struggling to stay alive.