Finally a company not focusing on useless figures that don't benefit anyone but the shareholders

Where did I say they stopped sharing numbers? I said they hid them. You then confirmed it with the bolded. Thanks, friend!

but the real money maker here is XBL subs on the XB1 and 360. if they ditch that, then where are they going to make money from? they can try and support XBL on PC and try competing with Steam, GOG and origin. but they wont be able to win that fight. 

To comment on the news itself...

Hardware numbers in total dont really matter as long as the hardware itself is popular enough to sustain a strong userbase when it comes to the key factor in videogames, which is the software. While Microsoft and 3rd party publishers/developers make money putting games on Xbox, Microsoft will continue to support the Xbox platform. With a bigger focus on digital games in the coming years, a remodelled Xbox One and theyre gonna be making a fuckton of money from Xbox and Xbox Live.

While games are still selling 2, 3, 4 Million copies on Xbox One at retail alone without taking into account DD sales, developers will continue to support the platform and it will continue to be a worthwhile venture for Microsoft.

And the article says it doesn't mean the end of hardware figures. So when they release FY reports or never update us on hardware again then the people upset about this will have a point. An irrelevant point, but a point nonetheless.

I'd argue that devs and publishers benefit from those "useless figures", but who do these new figures "benefit"?

I wouldn't say it's unacceptable, but when you use other numbers to try to make your product is doing better than it actually is, it comes off as hiding the truth because it is not doing as well as expected.

I doubt they'll suddenly start mentioning the shipment numbers in their reports, but oh well.

I don't really care about what point others in this thread are trying to make, I replied to your comment and added some information to that. I didn't reply to the other comments, but your comment. I mean, I get why Microsoft does this, and I know that it affects no one but the people interested in video game sales, but I'd wager a lot of the users on this site are interested in video game sales, and thus it is a bit of a shame for us. I don't blame Microsoft for anything per se though. I own stocks in Microsoft, and frankly, I don't care much about how xbox is doing, that's not important for Microsoft as a whole.

Network services only make money in 3, possibly four ways. Subscriptions, Advertising, and Vending, (possibly attracting investors)

Since XBL is free on PC, Subscriptions aren't a factor, this would be the only thing that really benefits from a high user count on PC. As for vending, due to competition with Steam et al, userbase alone isn't significant.

This is in contrast with XBL on Console, which is a closed plaform, so even disregarding the free accounts every user is more likely to purhase items through XBL.

Btw, Steamboxes are the dreamcasts of this gen, Gaben was just smart enough to trick some pc makers to sink their own money in rather than Steam's.

Actually I think they talked about that not too long ago.