Rumor?  That wasn't a rumor.  That was true.  And it was more than just one person.  It was at least 3, 1 who is in charge of MS's  cofounder's investments and 2 of which represent investment firms, including Goldman Sachs.  I'm guessing those altogether own more than the 6.5% share that Daniel Loeb owned of Sony.  Bill Gates wouldn't have said he would be ok with the CEO dropping the Xbox division just for ONE lone investor.  Nor would they be dropping the Xbox name from several services, in case of a Xbox sell off, for one investor.  Nor would they have dropped the amount of money they are investing into the Xbox division, if only one investor wanted them to.

And no one is talking about Daniel Loeb because he was as clear as day with his intentions.  He just wanted Sony to sell off some of the company so he could make a quick buck.  Sony wouldn't go for it, so Loeb sold his share.  The MS investors want to continue to invest in MS, but have them get rid of the divisions that they see as lost causes, like Xbox and Bing.  Sony has also righted the ship and are now making money, and have already gotten rid of a couple of the divisions that cause losses, so there isn't really any reason to talk about dropping any of their divisions, except maybe mobile.

And no, XBL has not covered the losses of XBOG and 360.  It has probably help them make hundreds of millions in profit over the years, but nowhere near the $7B+ in losses that the Xbox division has racked up since the start.  If it had, no one would be asking for the dropping of Xbox.

They are very well known now. Nearly as well known as Windows is.

7B dollars of FUCKING AMAZING, drop in the bucket compared to Military Expenditures ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

It's worth "Billions". Yep they lost 7 billion to make 2 billion. Sounds about right.

Finances doesn't work in the way people here seem to think. It's not like you accumulate losses and then write them of with profits. If MS invested 7B, that it's already played for. The profits they are making now, or if they would make a loss, it's what matters. A company cannot focus on more than ten year old losses, them they would never make investments.

Cost money to make something like XBL. No point in diving any further into the finances as some others are already doing, none of us have any idea what we are talking about lol.

so they lost 5B-7B selling 20M consoles and sony lost that in the first 3years of ps3 and ended selling 85M... i guess i preffer the second

a lot better than the 2.5 B invested in minecraft