They could if they changed their tune in a big way but honestly I'd say it's a waste to even try, it's better that they shift focus to what made them strong before and focus more on PC since it's obvious that consoles are not going to be around much longer with all 3 trying different venues and MS is looking to go back to what made them great, I feel if they make a proper comittment to PC after this gens end then they'll definitely had far more of a leg up in the competition than Sony and hopefully by then the pointless console wars will come to and end.

Sure, but you have to define what 'winning' is.

Certainly I agree with Tru_Fan, the 360 won last gen. No it didn't sell as much as the Wii, but it set a brand new graphic stander for most everything that followed. And improved on the innovation in movement gaming that finally worked with the Wii and improved it, mostly, with Kinect. Plus the 360 has the higher attachment rate of it's gen, that could be winning too. They also went from low sales on the original Xbox to major force with the 360, a win by many measurements.

As far as console sales, they could do really well in China or India and sell the most. Some would call that 'winning.' But then others would complain about it. Right now they would have lots of catching up to do for sales.

But the game may change with Windows 10, DirectX 12 and the new AR/VR products coming to market. Surely Cortana will be coming to the Xbox One and that my change things.

When the price gets lower, I can see more business have an Xbox One for it's really good Skype teleconferencing functionality. I know some had a 360 just for Kinect/Skyping. But they are also building that into the new wall mounted displays.

Plus there is that slim change Valve may actually be a force, but that seems less and less likely.

There are many things going on in the world of computers and things tend to change at a faster rate.

Sure it can happen. I just feel confident that it won't.

Subscription based hardware would flop hard(unless of course is veiled as single player content that requires internet) and on the digital front I think the competion, in Steam and other 3rd party publishers online services is to much to contend with.

But I do think digital consoles are the future.

think of it this way, a console you walk into a store, sign a minimum-term contract for, take it home for just the price of the first months payment.

throw in the online service as a part of that monhtly fee so that everyone that is paying monthly for the console can play online, it means anyone that wants the console with the full online experience can afford to have one, even if they dont have the money saved to outright buy the hardware normally.

in that way, walking in to a store and buying the console outright, then paying for the service seperately, would be the same as "pay as you go", and paying monthly would be "contract", ive each console a unique identifier so that the company that has sold the contract can "disable" units that are either stolen or people who have opened a contract fraudulantly.

Then of course, throw in the ability to upgrade to the next model at a discunted price in the same way mobile contractors offer handset upgrades.

Instead of having shit like iphone 6 16gb, iphone 6 32gb and so on as tiered contract prices, you'd have SKU differences, so if it had happaned this gen you'd have a kinectless xbox one for $19.99 a month, or kinect bundle for $25.99 a month, then gamers bundle with the console and 5 launch titles for $30.00 a month.

given that generations for consoles usually last around 4-7 years, you wouldnt be limited to offering 12, 16, 18 or 24 month contracts, either, you could technically offer 48 month contracts where the monthly payments are drastically reduced, imagine being able to get the latest console WITH online paid for, for $7 a month.

Don't most consumers rent their DVR from their Cable/Satellite provider? As well as most Cable Boxes - Remotes and many modems are rented.

In the USA you use to be force to rent your phone from the one company AT&T.

I think most web designers, or certainly many of the smaller ones, rent their server space from other companies. Even Netflix rented most of their online space from Amazon for most of history of the online part of the company. And Zynga is dropping their own hardware and going to Amazon.

My point is there is already very strong presence for rental entertainment and communication equipment.

I think MS can too but it might a be few console generations later on. MS needs to strengthen the xbox brand alot more world wide and rebuild gamers' trust in their console.

MS dragged the xbox brand through the mud on a international level when they tried to force those DRM policies onto gamers when no other console company was go with those policies. 

MS can't win if they directly compete with Sony in core gaming. Sony just has too big a mind share and global market share for MS to beat them. The only way for MS to win would be to go the Nintendo Wii route and aim for a different audience than Sony, which is difficult to do.

>.>cardinal sin is the comparison of bloodborne and dead rising 3 in this thread, loool thats so so bad >.>
not even in the same planet quality and artistically wise

It depends on what you really mean by winning a gen. The next gen very likely won't be much like the previous gens because everything is heading in a completely different direction than they are now. Consoles are effectively closed-off PC's, and Windows 10 is pretty much setup to be everything Microsoft wanted from the reveal of X1 at E3.

Cheap Atom tablets are capable of running games like Crysis and Skyrim, albeit at low settings. Both Sony and Microsoft want this gen to last as long as possible so that software sales can recoup R&D costs. If this Gen lasts as long as the previous one, you will likely see tablets operating on the level of these consoles.

Windows 10 unifies every product that Microsoft has on the market and allows you to stream content from your X1 to your Windows 10 device. The next gen of consoles will effectively be ARM/Atom boxes that stream content to your device via massive server farms. Considering everyone will have some version of Windows 10 somewhere because of free upgrades for Windows 7 and 8.1 owners; they'll be able to stream games off the ARM box to whatever device they have.