I do agree that as long as you have a healthy business not being the leader isn't that problematic. And in Apple case they are market leader in profit even if not in units sold that is still a 1st place.

Marketing rights don't prevent MS from making money off CoD.  It just sways a chunk of the sales towards Sony. Probably not even as significantly as some people think, because PS owners are going to tend to buy CoD on their system in the first place.  

I would need to see a citation for that number, and what the scope was for that number. They lost a large amount on hardware, they made money off licensing and subs, and their own game publishing. I would need to know what factors that number included.

I doubt their subs would be as sustainable without Xbox hardware.

You do need competition.

The thing about Valve and Steam though is that they are a privately held company.

That means they don't have to appease shareholders and drive profits at any expense.
Gabe Newell can spend money and not turn a profit on a side project and not be held accountable on failing to get a return on an investment or idea.

That definitely means that Valve can maneuver itself in the marketplace a little differently than other business ventures, but it also means they are limited in how much money they can raise to enter new markets.

We also need to remember that Steam has competition... Origin, uPlay, EpicStore, Battle.net Launcher, Windows Store and more are all competing for a piece of the same pie, which has consistently pushed Steam to remain the defacto store, even when developers/publishers tried to omit them.

Even before these other stores popped into existence, Steam was competing with consoles.


As for Microsoft and controllers... Microsoft is trying to exit the peripherals market to a degree, they have wound down their Microsoft keyboards/mice/controllers and are rebranding their premium variants to "Surface" devices.
...Probably wont get an update to sidewinder force it seems.

Their controllers will go in the same direction if they exit the console business.

I don't need Xbox personally, but you are wrong on X1 or Series burning money from MS. They may not have high profits (MS doesn't show the numbers), but the HW itself hardly is losing more than 1 or 2 games worth of profit, so considering the 10+ average it console sells and the subscriptions the HW itself is advantageous to MS.
Regarding needing MS to keep Sony in check I don't believe in it, PS2 dominated the market with easyness and still had price, quantity and quality while PS4 had a much stronger competitor in X1 and didn't cut prices besides once and in PS5 situation is similar regarding sales and besides the price increases due to inflation/exchange ratio there is no interest from either MS or Sony to cut prices at the moment.

They are a leader in profits, even if they don't sell the most units.

Which is the *exact* business model Microsoft is trying to adopt with Xbox. - Volume sales can come later and capitalise on that.

I don't need Xbox personally, but you are wrong on X1 or Series burning money from MS. They may not have high profits (MS doesn't show the numbers), but the HW itself hardly is losing more than 1 or 2 games worth of profit, so considering the 10+ average it console sells and the subscriptions the HW itself is advantageous to MS.

The iPhone actually is the market leader in the US market, Apple doesn't care to heavily discount as much to get developing markets that require lower pricing, though even for that they've made some aggressive new model options on the bottom end of their product line at a cheaper price. 

Exactly my point. They are a leader in profits, even if they don't sell the most units.

Which is the *exact* business model Microsoft is trying to adopt with Xbox. - Volume sales can come later and capitalise on that.

Sony have the marketing rights, which pushes a huge amount of CoD sales on their platform. Sales = Profits. Sony is making Billions on CoD alone, Xbox isn't. Sony have the Console CoD audience.

360 lost $4billion on hardware, the subs is what kept MS from leaving the market, the exact point of my thread. MS want subs not hardware responsibilities. 

Disagree. 

For starters, weather UPlay, Originas, EpicGS, Battle.Net, Windows Store and ill add another GoG didn't exist, it wont change anything to how Steam is still ran today. If anything, competition has created more issues with the PC market place, like when EGS entered the market, creating more headaches for users and poaching games off Steam which frustrated players. Steam doesn't need competition.

Xbox hardware costs billions to RnD and create. It also means they need customer service stations, manufacture materials, deals and the middle man to sell them. XB1 made money for Xbox but it was due to subscriptions and Software sales. Xbox doesn't sell enough hardware to stay relevant.

You dont need Xbox to exist since you don't invest in it. So hopefully for you, soon Xbox will pull out of the hardware business and you will just have PS for your needs.

I think Netflix is probably the more apt analogy for how MS sees the XBox division ... Netflix lost money for 10+ years but in doing so became the streaming leader.

MS has more than enough money, I mean just think for a second AFTER buying Bethesda, they still have like 70 billion (which is probably more than what the Playstation division is worth and more than Nintendo's market cap) to casually try and buy Activision too. This is like knowing someone that just carries around $10,000 in their wallet.

Microsoft is not your typical company. 

Daniel Ahmad suggested the mere profits they were making on games and services were probably overshadowed by the loss they make on hardware, during the Epic vs Apple trial.

Are you seriously trying to say that XBox is "a leader in profits"?

A few months ago, MS admitted losing $100-$150 per console sold. Shortly thereafter they reduced the price of the consoles by $50...

How much does XBox pay the MS Server division for using Azure? For maintaining/expanding server hardware?

"Volume sales can come later and capitalise on that". Yeah, we know that excuse:

Phil Spencer in 2016: "Yeah this year wasn't really good, software wise. But next year, you will see..."

Phil Spencer in 2017: "Yeah this year wasn't really good, software wise. But next year, you will see..."

Phil Spencer in 2018: "Yeah this year wasn't really good, software wise. But next year, you will see..."

...

Rinse and repeat and we are now in 2023. Still the same guy with the same announcement.

XBox was and still essentially is a vanity project initiated by Balmer/Gates. For any "normal" company, it should have been killed 1-2 decades ago as it has been writing red numbers day one ever since its inception.

Daniel Ahmad suggested the mere profits they were making on games and services were probably overshadowed by the loss they make on hardware, during the Epic vs Apple trial.

I guess if MS decides to leave the console market they could very well work the servers to use different HW even more with almost all titles available on PC, but yes at this moment it would be unnecessary extra cost, but for a next gen it could make sense (not that I think they won't release a new console or that it wouldn't make sense to use it for cloud).

I know that time very well and that phrase was both poorly done and severely misrepresented. The way it was told was "This console is so great that you would be willing to work a second job to buy it", but yes I can certainly see that Sony had arrogant thought thinking at the time that allowed them to not do the right processing and direction. Still PS3 was sold at 200 dollar loss (while PS4 was 50 from release and PS5 50-100) so it was more like they were so confident they would be selling great that they burned a lot of money instead of they priced as high as possible, because even if PS didn't had a direct competitor (it did, but considering how much marketshare they had) they know that if they fuck to much a substitute product can come (just like they came when Nintendo and Sega fucked up).

I'm not saying they would make the same decisions without direct competition (MS or otherwise), I just said that the price of the console and games wouldn't go 1k USD and games 100 USD if MS stopped launching consoles.

I have no doubt that XBL really put pressure on PSN improving (even if I don't care about MP I totally credit MS for both the good things that Gold brought as well as the bad ones such as paid online, that nowadays is likely impossible to disappear). I can't be sure if PS4 architecture is a response to X360 being a lot simpler or they seeing that the type of architecture of PS3 was dead, but sure I'm willing to credit this decision from competition pressure.

And just to close I don't think MS have no direct, it certainly does, I do think that without MS moneyhatting a lot of games during X360 and even for titles they didn't the fact they gone multiplatform because X360 was a viable platform pressured Sony to rely a lot less in 3rd parties than in the past (and possible expend more on securing key marketing/temporary exclusivity deals) and power up their 1st party. That is why I said I don't need Xbox, because I'm not interested in its first parties or even the route of more GAAS (that Sony is also taking and I don't like), not that the market itself doesn't need Xbox or a strong competitor to PS.