Nice way to spin it. You're still wrong. But thank you for your contribution.

(I can't cut down quite trees right now, since I'm on my phone.)

As a fan of Windows Phone, and many like me are the same way, I was brought there by Nokia. I can tell you that without Nokia hardware, Windows Phone wouldn't be the undisputed third platform right now. The problem with Windows Phone used to be that OEMs did not take it seriously until Nokia came along.

Nokia hardware brought me to Windows Phone, and it alone nearly carried WP to that 10 million device threshold. The Nokia hardware catapulted Windpws Phone to 10%+ market share in several EU countries.

And it dragged me aboard, by virtue of my 620 and 630, along for that wild, wild ride.

What I picked up from this were two things:

1. 2014 was a lost year for WP.

2. Nokia dragged Windows Phone to the spotlight and made it stay there.

It kind of depends on the perspective, though. On the consumer side, yes, the Xbox is a big, important part of Microsoft, very visible and recognized.

From the perspective of a lot of shareholders, however, the Xbox division is just this thing that saps money from the bottom line, especially this early in the gen, and the thing about Microsoft is they are VERY pro-bottom line. They squeeze profit out of their operations as much as humanly possible- right down to the, er, enthusiastic use of permatemp employees who do the same hours/duties are full employees, but at less pay, and few if any benefits- and have just generally been kind of Scrooge McDuck-y. They usually only throw money at something in the hopes of achieving the same sort of dominance that Windows gave them, thus Bing, Windows Phones, even Xbox, all efforts to take over markets ruled by Google, Apple, and at the moment shared with Sony and Nintendo.

The income from those products bring very, very little profit, if any, with the money-makers by FAR being their computer software and service divisions. A lot of their income comes not even from individuals purchasing Windows for their home computers, but from businesses, governments, etc, buying bulk licenses for LOTS of money.

Huh, interesting... The plot thickens...

When Minecraft and the studio is 2 billion, how much would be the entire Xbox division with Halo, Forza, Fable, Gears of War, Xbox Live, 20+ studios and the entire brand?

Who could afford it? Samsung and Apple would make the most sense. Maybe Amazon, but they just reported a higher than expected loss, so I doubt they could / would do this.

Maybe some kind of investment companies, but that wouldn't make much sense for them to buy a whole company and run their operations - something they have no clue about.

I don't see the buyers and I don't see MS to do this tbh.
Same with Nintendo and Playstation btw. The number of potential candidates to join this console gaming industry is VERY limited and the number of potential candidates to acquire the divisions of existing players is even smaller.

Most people here misunderstood the point Cramer was making.
MS will not sell XBox division.
They will merely spin it off to a new, standalone company, which would still be owned by Microsoft. They could then seek minority shareholders, and adding Minecraft would only increase the value of the new company. That new company would include Surface as well, most likely.

Given the money spent on Minecraft, it woyld certainly be the cornerstone of the new independent company, which would probably focus more on mobile/handheld/tablet audience, with console business remaining only as a pet project.

EA is touting iPhone6 as powerful as next-gen consoles. XBox will probably work in that direction as well, bringing Minecraft, but also a rebooted Gears of War to mobile, along with already existing Halo mobile titles.

It might be too soon, but I expect Surface rebranded to XBox tablet next holuday season, launching with Minecraft Infinite, Gears of War: Rebirth and Halo: Spartan Assault 2 on Windows 9 devices.

So is it too soon to necro all the topics where people theorized that MS would eventually listen to investors and sell off Xbox? Apparently to Mr. Cramer this purchase is a tell tale sign that MS is fattening the pig before they take it to market...

Spinning it off is literally selling it off but maintaining high shares so they could have strong say in direction and still recieve profits from those shares but it would be a completely different company owned by different people, with seperate investors. In order to make it stand alone, or to make it core as Cramer put it they have to sell it. What you think "spinning off" means is literally what happened when they made the Xbox Division in the first place. In order for it to be a core company it has to be cut off from MS and given its own leaders and investor. Only way to do that is to sell it.

I think it all depends on if MS is still willing to sell Minecraft games on their competitors iOS and android devices.

As of April 2014 the sales breakdown in millions looked something like this:

Mojang is also a smaller 40 person company with a team of 11 game developers including Notch himself.  It's clear that the Minecraft IP is the main incentive for the purchase, but it's unclear what exactly they plan do with it in the future.