Who cares about investors that have no vote to make changes at MS.  People really need to stop with the investor argument as it holds no weight.  If you think investors want the Xbox division gone what about Sony.  These investors always pop up demanding a corporation to divest their interest for short term goals so they can get paid.  People really should understand the market better before throwing around such information.

You're about 20% too generous. For all the internet rhetoric you've heard since, it only barely squeaked ahead of the Gamecube. You might have gotten confused because the third-party ports lasted throughout its (admittedly limited) lifetime.

So a billion dollar investment in the Xbox unit including opening new GAMING studios is not a long term vision.  People really need to get a reality check.  Just because the Xbox division is not a core component of MS which it never was, its still a unit which MS has and still is spending significant amount of money to improve and broaden the reach of the brand.

MS is closing down Xbox Entertainment because its not core to gamers.  Actually after Phil became top dog, it seems MS Xbox division focus has totally changed towards gaming and improving on those core components.  Instead of people worrying about the parent company core Units, you should probably concentrate on what is core to the Xbox division.  Apparently hiring more developers to fill out their gaming studions and also hiring people for the next iteration of the Xbox hardware should be a bigger clue as to the direction of the Xbox department.

Very few people, really. But he probably cares about the investors who do have a vote to make changes at Microsoft.

This is why people should do their research.  The investors that are looking to spin off the Xbox division have no vote.  They tried a power move to buy up 1% of MS stock just so they can accomplish that task and did not get it.  Even if they did, MS has never moved to investors whims especially when its the type of investors that care nothing about the long term goals of a company but are looking for a quick buck.

Many people at the board also are sceptical of Xbox.

And they were powerful enough to fire Ballmer.

It's never been integral in terms of profits, and it probably never will be. Xbox is just a very small part of the behemoth Microsoft.

The developer that said it costs nearly as much as the console itself was full of it. If you look aross the web, you will see pretty wide agreement it costs between 75 and 100 dollars to make. It is simply foolish to believe it costs the same as the console itself, as that would only leave about $200 for console costs, which simply isn't possible unless every single part supplier is losing their bottoms on every Xbox.

I could find no information from any of MS board members besides the statment made from Bill Gates.  As to Ballmer being fired, it had nothing to do with the Xbox brand and more to do with Nokia.

This.