I reported the thread literally about 50 minutes ago kowen.

You, DirtyP and others are starting to look like that which you hate so much.

Ill leave it at that.

No, now is not the time. Too much dough to be had and too many fanboys to continue to piss off.

So how's the weather in everyone's neck of the woods? It's been pretty blazin' in the Northeast of the United States. I find that complaining about the weather is a rather silly thing to do but if there is a time that I might, it's these hot, really humid summer days. I know people live in areas where that type of weather is more the norm but when you are used to four distinct seasons, it's hard to accept these hot and humid days in comparison to some nice Spring and Fall weather. Today looks like it will be the last in this latest heat wave for us however. As I look at the 10 day projection at the Weather Channel I see mostly nice low 80's temps. I hope that the humidity is down as well.

Yes, it is time for you to leave.

So you think the XB1 is going to sell less then the WIi U? Because they aren't going to be third place this gen.What are we betting on that? Should Nintendo bow out of home consoles to?

If you go by that logic Sony should bow out to. They lost billions on the PS3 and went from 80%+ market share (was it more?) with the PS2, to barely winning second place this gen. Don't even get me started on the Vita.

I don't want Microsoft to leave the console space because that will make the hardware market less competitive, which means that I will have fewer choices and hardware will tend to stagnate. I don't want that. I want all three companies to do well because if all three are succeeding, then each company individually has more competition. More competition makes a better product.

This is the same reason I don't want Sony or Nintendo to leave, either. Every time a company leaves the industry, we all lose. Even if we don't personally like their products.

*sigh* if MS leaves it'll hurt the gaming industry.

It is always hard to split it up for one certain product, because we only get numbers for the whole division.
Here is how the EDD did since the launch of the Xbox 360:

2013: 848 million USD profit
2012: 364 million USD profit
2011: 1.257 billion USD profit
2010: 517 million USD profit
2009: 169 million USD profit
2008: 497 million USD profit
2007: 1.892 billion USD loss
2006: 1.284 billion USD loss
2005: 539 million USD loss

So currently a 63 million loss for the whole EDD.

These numbers include:

250 - 500 million USD loss for Kin phone "Cost of revenue increased $240 million or 2%, primarily reflecting increased online costs and charges resulting from the discontinuation of the KIN phone" http://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar11/financial_review/discussion_analysis.html
So 200 million USD for pulling the plug + R&D + payments to Sharp + marketing etc.

1 billion USD for Nokia (http://betanews.com/2012/01/26/microsoft-invests-1-billion-to-sell-a-million-nokia-windows-phones/) Even though they will get 650 million USD from Nokia over the next 3 years. These payments from Nokia are not yet included in these numbers. At least not all of it.

At the very least 500 hundred million for the Zune. It was 5 years on the market, got an HD version and was cancelled once for all. When the discontinuation of the Kin phone was 200 Million, the Zune must have been WAY more expensive.

Windows Phone 7 and the versions before that weren't that popular either, so this must have pushed the losses further.

On the other hand there are smaller parts of the division that are probably profitable (mice, keyboards etc.) but these profits are peanuts compared to the profits / losses from their major products (Zune, Xbox 360, Windows Phone)

I think an educated guess is, that the Xbox 360 made MS 2 billion USD in 8 years. That is why I said healthy, because it is not breathtaking. RROD ruined it quite a bit. The really good part is that the Xbox One will benefit from the progress the 360 made.

Well neither Sony nor Microsoft have profited off their current generation consoles over the course of their lives, which is what really matters. So it seems to me both should leave the console business in this case.

Anyway, I believe that for Sony and Microsoft, consoles are less about making money and more about brand recognition. Because if they make themselves known by having consoles, then people will see their other products more easily. I mean the risk of the money you can lose with consoles outweighs the reward you can make with them (the way Sony and Microsoft play). I think that over the course of their lives neither the Xbox or Xbox360 have profited, and the PS3 lost nearly as much money as the PS1 and PS2 made. The two companies are always on the cutting edge of technology when they release consoles.

Nintendo, on the other hand, is strictly gaming, so they need to profit with their consoles. Because of this they take less risks by making less powerful consoles, but also innovate in ways that people will love. So their risk/reward ratio is a little more favorable than the other two as they have to make money through gaming.

Thread just seems too much like flamebait to me. You don't make any actual argument for why they should completely leave the industry, and then you just start talking about the classic "why does NA love them so much" out of the blue....

Yeah, locked.

I shouldn't take that poll seriously. You can easy make a bot to send in a few thousand votes for you favorite console