That seems right at the moment

COuld be I have no clue. Someone willing to read it would have to verify that.

We all know that selling a game digitally makes them more profit than retail. I doubt anyone can argue about that. But no matter how much the ratio of digital to physical is, selling more over all is more profitable. And no, live subs are not 100% profit. You have to incentivise costumers to get live subs. For that you have to offer something for free that otherwise you would be selling to them. Example, the 4 - 6 games platform holders offer every month for free. Its not new games obviously, most of the time is games people would not buy to begin with. And while it hurts less cuz is not a direct loss, is a potential loss that cuz maybe gamers would have bought it, so that's the same as a direct profit loss.

Why are you following anybody? what stakes could you possibly have in this race?  But granted you are right. MS knows whats best for them. But you have to also look at the rest of the world. Sony and nintendo are killing it in the same market doing what has always worked. Had MS any success like them, would they have started looking into alternatives? 

Yeah, tell that to Apple and every single movie and music studio in the US Or MS and their windows products. If you trully believe that they are not concerned for the lion share of markets than you are probably smoking something better than what I have access to. Also, even in the US it will end up dead last, so how is that an achievment?

You are probably right, Online services do have incentives.. however its clear that it is a much better way to profit when done right. 

Nintendo, Sony and Xbox have all had there ups and downs, console gaming is a giant gamble every Gen, One becomes super successful and the other fails to fire. Its common and its a dangerous industry and can be a major disaster for inventors or a great investment to some.

What started it all was Steam, a service that hit the gaming jackpot. That's something all companies are trying to achieve even Sony and Nintendo hence why PSN, PSNOW and Eshop and Nintendo's upcoming service all exists. Its become the standard and eventually it will become the full focus, Sony and Nintendo are trying to do it while not pissing off there customers and sneaking in there future plans while MS seem to be more upfront with there future plans. Hardware gets old, and everyone moves on eventually, where as an Account doesn't and it stays in the eco system waiting for the next big thing. Its a future proof system that will continue to generate money even though-out the generations. That's why MS have a bigger focus than just Xbox, there focus is also on the PC market and trying to grab as many customers as possible for there network.

Yes Sony and Nintendo are killing it right now however lets not forget the WiiU, the PS3, the Dreamcast and many more, this industry is far from perfect. Next gen will be another gamble on who would fall first and who will rise. Someone is going to lose. Unless you are Steam.

Gamers should start ignoring game sale numbers since things like Game-Pass will decrease physical game sales and that it wont be telling the full story any more which I think is a great thing. Sale numbers is usually nothing more than a ego tester, fanboys, trolls and it leads to nothing but wars. Having a service defeats the purpose of a debate which will lead to a healthier industry.

Well see there are a few flaws with your debate. 

1st - I said Majority not all. In your eyes the US Automotive industry must be failing hard since there cars are mostly popular in the USA. Much like the Australian Car Industry as well since no one buys there stuff overseas either (Yes I'm Australian)

2nd - USA is enough to satisfy any maker if you succeed in the US your product succeeds as well.

3rd - You act like finishing last means unsuccessful. Its a Business not a Sport might want to Learn the difference between the two. There's no Gold trophy to the 1st place team.

4th - Did you forget the WiiU finished last this gen?

Proof is you don't need the rest of the world to be successful.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-19/death-of-australian-car-making-leaves-chasm-in-blue-collar-towns

2: True, but at the same time it sells less than half of its global possibility

3: Again, its true, and nothing inherently wrong, the problem is that MS puts a whole lot of manpower behind the Xbox division, and they are way behind schedule when it comes to real results. One would argue that the dropped way behind their intended 200 million target.

4: No I did not and it was a horrible failure, yet lets be honest this time around the X and PS4 will have to compete with the Switch, regardless the generational gap. Also, while Nintendo needed to try again to stay alive, MS does not rely on the gaming industry to stay relevant. Compare the Xbox brand to Azure and it quickly becomes obvious just how badly they look in comparison.

I think you are very confused on something and that while steam did struck gold, the circumstances are not the same anymore. Steam was groundbreaking for its time when everyone was on their own and gave just brought them together. But in a world where steam exist, there is no need for another service like it. Even if its better people wont care cuz it has a monopoly. plus what it offers its quite minimal really, everything is pretty much similar already. The only way MS can fight steam is by offering a similar platform, but also add something that steam doesn't and that would be exclusive games. So in the end, what would help push the console business would also push its pc store front.

So in the end, the future you are describing will be the same as the present, just that they might not need to produce the box anymore, but without anything to call out to their digital store thats unique that another store does not offer, it will fail, just the same as its already failed and they had to put games on steam like cuphead and I dont recall the other game.

And on the thing about ignoring game sales, thats already the case. We here that do care are but a small percent of the real gaming population. we really dont impact anything. And focusing on subs wont change anything, it will then be who has the most subs that starts fan wars. Like why does MS not disclose how many users actually pay for gold subs? 

X had lot of hype but the software sales down just confirms that X did not make much difference. As expected hardcore Xbox fans simply upgraded.

I think its worst than that. If software sales would had hover around the same, then you could say that fans upgraded. But since it was down a whopping 10%, we have to assume that a lot of regular xbox gamers just ditched the console. So there has to be less xbox players than in 2016.

Since they only had a couple of weeks to get PUBG sales during Q2 of FY2018, I'm not surprised Q2 of FY2017 had more software sales. The lineup then was, imho, much stronger. Plus while they launched a new console, it was not one aimed at the masses and was more of an upgrade for existing owners, so you wouldn't see a splurge of new software sales because these people already owned the games they bought the X for.

Furthermore Game Pass expanded and had some sweet games and would have easily affected software sales. And with all of Microsoft's efforts going into the service day one, those waters are only going to get murkier and murkier.