Not losing by much is the new winning, I see.

That meme reeks of desesperation =/

you can say what you want, but i never said anything about sony winning or losing, and frankly i don't really care, but it just seems to me you can't count sony outjuet yet

Considering the fiasco that was the RRoD, customers still seem to remain secure in buying MS products. If they start the next generation without a hitch, they might just be a contender for #1

Microsoft owns RARE, Lionhead Studios, Turn 10 Studios, Big Park Studios, Halo franchise, Gears of War franchise, they are profiting highly from Xbox LIVE subscriptions & LIVE Marketplace, next gen they need to have a Blu-Ray Player & Built-in WiFi and a realiable console, and if they keep slowly aquiring 3rd party exclusives and game studios, they will do good enough and make a lot of money.

i agree, they need a more reliable system, that should be number one if you ask me, that is the only thing keeping me from buying a 360 right now, i really couldn't care less who wins, because we as gamers all win with competition

fyi, microsoft does not own gears of war, epic does, microsoft only owns publishing rights to gears 1 and 2, we'll see what they do with the future of the gears franchise

""next gen Microsoft need to have a Blu-Ray Player ""

Woow u think that will happen? lolol

Isnt Bluray from Sony?

^ If BR was *just* from Sony it might justify the total screw up which is the PS3. However they are part of a group, and in that group they don't even hold 1/4 of the patents.

Blu-ray Disc Patent Holders

Participating companies included CyberLink; Dell; Hewlett-Packard; Hitachi; Koninklijke Philips Electronics; LG Electronics; Matsushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic); Mitsubishi Electric; Pioneer; Samsung Electronics; Sanyo Electric; Sharp; Sony; TDK; Victor Company of Japan; and Warner Home Video.

I would agree that they would like to see the end of all consoles and make it strictly PC only gaming, but the amount of losses they will take achieving this goal diminishes as the threat to windows grows less. So, to defeat Sony they would take losses far higher than they would take to defeat Nintendo. Now, if Nintendo became a true threat to windows for some reason, they would allow losses to stop them.

So, basically I am saying they are willing to lose money to defeat sony but not to defeat Nintendo. Not only that, I think they corperate philosophy of Nintendo will allow them to stay in the business far longer than both other companies. Nintendo is very innovative and can read the market and can think in a way that allows mass consumers to like their product. This was not seen with the GC as I don't believe it was made in the Iwata philosophy. But the DS and Wii are. Both these products could survive with minimal 3rd party support and do well. Not only that, they start off making money with each unit. And, even if MS spends ALOT of money, they cannot buy every 3rd party game. They can buy big ones to keep themselves relevent but this is not the same as winning or shutting down Nintendo. Nintendo will always be better at predicting the next best thing.

As for Sony, both companies are basically fighting for the same, smaller pie (that costs far more to dev for than the pie last gen). This is a fight where spending matters. The values the target market for both consoles is high end graphics, mature games, online. Also,  niether company had many 1st party known franchises coming in to this gen. Sony had GT, GoW. MS had Halo. Good ones, but they cannot make the console viable on itself. MS went on to buy exclusives and multiplatforms. This hurt Sony (ESPECIALLY in Japan.) as there was less reason to own a PS3 compared to the PS2 generation. And, as MS has a more profitable business (whole company comparison here) and has more company resources they can outspend. The philosophy of both these companies are the same and they are thinking the same, thus the spending matters far more than in the above example.

How is Sony's PC business hurting MS? Lets not forget who's OS is on the Sony machines.