I'm surprised at Microsoft's resilience in the gaming business.
Up until 2011 xbox division was almost 7 billion in the red, 360 likely did make some profits in 2012-3013,
but since the launch of XB1 they're making huge losses again. And considering the next console generation will likely be the end of the traditional consoles, it seems unlikely they'll ever break even in this business.

I guess it kind of make sense why they're so desperate to succeed, considering they don't have a single consumer product that's ever been successful for them beside XBOX 360. Their Zune, Windows Phones, Tablets all failed.
360 sparked a hope in MS that they may finally get some mindshare among the people, but XB1 is really destroying that dream, i wonder how much longer they'll be willing to bleed money over this endeavor.

i think how the whole first and second party thing works is being misunderstood. 

if Sony is funding a games development, it basically means they are paying the wages of the team developing the game and other development associated costs for the duration of the games development. after that, if it's a first party team, they remain on Sony's payroll regardless and might receive a milestone bonus, a second party team will not remain on sonys payroll after the game is released but will be entitled to a small percentage of all sales of the game after release. 

If a first party team makes a game that sells very very well, it just means they are in a position to get paid more per year than other teams. Like I believe naughty dog is Sony's highest paid studio. 

You only sing when you're winning,  sing when your wiiiiing! Seriously though good to see some people return so we can have better discussions.  Hopefully they all stay. 

This is something I've been wondering as well. I almost feel like after this gen they'll give up if things don't turn around.  I could be wrong though cause I'm really surprised at how much they are willing to lose just to try and win. So maybe they are willing to do whatever it takes to beat Sony.

The Order dropped out of the Top 20 to #22. X1 and PS4 have been at their same spots since yesterday.

Does anyone else think MS has not shiped a single x1 since november/early december's overshipping? Most likely MS next Q results will be embarasing for the xbox family.

Also, it seems that hevely critizied sony games lieke the order, destiny or watchdogs end up sellig well, even knack sold decently, but then xbox asosiated games like rise, evolve, sunset(I think the resption to critics was luke warm) dont end up so hot. If AC5 was not free with another game and discounted I dont think it would have sold so well. I think its best for publishers to not accept MS money if they want to grow.

That's been a problem with the core XBOX fanbase forever, they really don't buy many different games.

They mostly stick to a couple franchises like Halo, gears, Forza, Fable, CoD, and everything else suffers big time. This wasn't so pronounced last gen cause multuplat owners bought multiplat games on the 360, but it's going to show this gen big time.

I think 3rd party publishers are alreay learing their lesson and it'll get increasingly hard for MS to get exclusivity deals with other publishers. Their only option might be to go diresctly to developers who can't get a publisher for their game, which is a good thing overall cause it means games that wouldn't get made will get made, rather than MS just giving money to another big publisher to hoard a game that would've been on everything to begin with.

The value bundle is out of stock, so this will be interesting to watch.

Wow MS does bundles like no other.

Good stuff.