The Playstation sold over 100m consoles versus around 10m for the Saturn. Sony's best selling game that generation sold more units than Sega sold consoles...
Are... you... serious?...
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When do you think Microsoft will react to potentially losing next gen battle?
- Thread starter Tak3n
- Start date
The Playstation sold over 100m consoles versus around 10m for the Saturn. Sony's best selling game that generation sold more units than Sega sold consoles...
Are... you... serious?...
MadScientist
Banned
The two options I would put on my list if I made the decisions at MS would be these:
1. Let the XBO be the last console from MS and leave the market.
The console business is probably not the Trojan horse to conquer the living room that MS thought it might be. Due to the first XBox and the RROD lost more money than they ever made from it. Now their previously unsatisfactory market share will even start to shrink. Why should they pump more money into the business to pursue a goal they are not going to achieve?
2. Build a console that offers Kinect the media functionality, but only plays XBL games. Put it on the market for USD/EUR 100.
Skype and Kinect in your living room is valuable if everybody has it. MS thought they could use the XBO to get a decent install base, but that seems unlikely to happen now. If they were to start selling a competitor to Roku and Apple TV that also plays certain games and allows Skype calls from your living room, that device would be interesting to a lot of people that are not into games. Even gamers would think twice if they shouldn't chose the console that has that functionality build in, if they want to use that functionality to communicate with their family and non-gaming friends.
1. Let the XBO be the last console from MS and leave the market.
The console business is probably not the Trojan horse to conquer the living room that MS thought it might be. Due to the first XBox and the RROD lost more money than they ever made from it. Now their previously unsatisfactory market share will even start to shrink. Why should they pump more money into the business to pursue a goal they are not going to achieve?
2. Build a console that offers Kinect the media functionality, but only plays XBL games. Put it on the market for USD/EUR 100.
Skype and Kinect in your living room is valuable if everybody has it. MS thought they could use the XBO to get a decent install base, but that seems unlikely to happen now. If they were to start selling a competitor to Roku and Apple TV that also plays certain games and allows Skype calls from your living room, that device would be interesting to a lot of people that are not into games. Even gamers would think twice if they shouldn't chose the console that has that functionality build in, if they want to use that functionality to communicate with their family and non-gaming friends.
Erm MS has the heavy hitters (shooters) , the leading online infrastructure (paid subscriptions) and just as much 3rd party as much support as the competition, unlike your comparison. Your conclusion is invalid.
polyh3dron
Banned
I think they'll react by cutting this console generation short just like they did the first time. Expect to see a very powerful backward compatible new Xbox console in 2017.
You mean the IP catalog that was hardly present? Didn't one of the execs even say they wanted to focus on new IP? It didn't even have a proper Sonic game, it got Sonic 3D blast (genesis port), Sonic R, and Sonic Jam, all of which were okay at best. It was incredibly difficult to develop for (was originally meant to be a kick-ass 2D machine) so more devs flocked to PS, arcades were dying, and it also didn't have as much third-party support outside of Japan, and Sega burned good will with add-ons like 32X and Sega CD. And the arcade conversions weren't that great. I know, because I had them and I was still an arcade goer.
It doesn't compare to Xbox One in any way beyond the $100 price difference.
Breaking news. PS4 to outsell xbox one 10:1.
FutureZombie
Banned
It's funny that people think a company should quit if they're not number one. So Burger King, Wendy's, In and Out, and all the other burger places should just stop now since they're not beating McDonald's?
"Winning" and "losing" are not business terms. Profits and loss are.
"Winning" and "losing" are not business terms. Profits and loss are.
Louis Cyphre
Banned
Really, so it's just that easy is it? Was that Nintendo's approach with the Wii? The Wii's main success was from casuals was it not? Was that Sony's approach with Vita? How did that strategy pay off?
The hardcore did buy the system, they bought over 3 million units. How long did it take before the XBox 360 sold 3 million? Microsoft will evaluate the next few months and go from there. They seem to be putting a lot of emphasis on TitanFall and if that doesn't move a lot of sales I expect a price cut soon or at the very least games being bundled.
I don't think that strategy is going to work twice.
Saturn did well enough in Japan(comparable to the N64 in sales) but it just wasn't built for the new market. It could handle sprites in ways that made the PSX cry(compare the ports of Alpha 3 for example) but that wasn't the direction the market was headed(It failed hard at 3D). The Xbone isn't flawed in the same way, it can handle the same kind of games the PS4 can, so it's not doomed like that console was
Because your public prediction has no chance of being accurate.
SwiftDeath
Member
Yes Apple, Valve, and google will fight for that title
I'm thinking per employee as Valve is obviously small potatoes
Dragonborn
Member
I could see them doing it and I swear if they cut this generation short..... But like you said, I doubt it would work. It worked the first time because Sony messed up completely and MS played all their cards exactly right. Sony isn't going to mess up again (or at least, I don't think they will after the PS3). Even if the X2 launches a year ahead, it won't matter much.
Come on OP, not even a year in, without any clues as to what future titles and products exist for either console, and you've declared your winner. It's silly. It's like claiming Amazon or google's home console is doomed, or steam machines will fail, or VR is finished. All ridiculous as there is simply not enough data to go on.
No idea of games and products or services due in the next 5 years and how they will effect the machines.
No idea what devs will sink, or what technologies will rise and who will integrate them best.
It's just pointless cattyness at this point. Have fun watching everything unfold but dam man
No idea of games and products or services due in the next 5 years and how they will effect the machines.
No idea what devs will sink, or what technologies will rise and who will integrate them best.
It's just pointless cattyness at this point. Have fun watching everything unfold but dam man
double post
per employee?? lol cmon....
even so, their "console division" wont make a profit
apple sell consoles?
this is between sony and microsoft, will be interesting to see which division is most profitbale.
SwiftDeath
Member
Apples sells games through their platform but no they don't sell consoles.
If your question is what console platform holder will make the most profit this generation, it's clearly not Nintendo and if sales continue this trend for PS and XB it's clearly not MS
Between Sony and MS I truly believe Sony will be more profitable unless XB1's fortune turn around without help from MS
If MS has to drop price without dropping kinect they pretty much concede making more profit this generation
miDnIghtEr20C
Banned
Both MS and Sony lost last gen to Nintendo. I don't think they're worried too much.
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
Don't agree w/ the bolded, yet. The mere fact Wii U is a non-starter should ensure XBO gets more sales than it would if Nintendo didn't fuck up. But it might not do even twice as well as OG Xbox. At most I'm thinking 35-40 million in five/six years, tops.
There's almost no way it'll do as bad as Saturn did it's gen, no chance.
But other than that, yeah, XBO is looking like Saturn 2.0. And it won't even have a great import library, to boot.
In the right hands Saturn could do 3D just as well, if not better than, PS1. The problem was the dev. environment; it was practically non-existent.
There are still plenty of reasons XBO can fail really hard (tho, realistically, not 10-12 million lifetime fail). We'll know pretty well by holiday this year.
The Wii was an anolmany, and even it that case, I think time's distorted the machine. What the Wii did right (and XBO hasn't) is it appealed to both core and casual gamers right off the bat.
They had Red Steel and Twilight Princess, but they also had Wii Sports. XBO's lineup was very core-focused, but for a system trying to pull off a Wii strategy, they somehow forgot to focus on a 1st-party casual game for launch. They goofed.
When the 360 launched, even though it was only 4 years after the Xbox, it was almost 6 years after the PS2. The market was ready for the next-gen. That would not be the case this time.
Rushing out a new console would also cost a massive amount of money for R&D. And to make it a huge leap over the PS4, it would have to cost several hundred more dollars. In the end it would just get better-looking ports of PS4 games.
It would basically be the worst strategy possible, based on an outdated paradigm.
BundysFeet
Banned
I think it's quite premature to discuss losing next gen. We're only four months into the generation and while Microsoft definitely has some issues to work out with the Xbox One they're not insurmountable. At the end of the day it's going to come down to price and software.
While the Kinect definitely is the reason for the price difference, let's wait and see how Microsoft responds after the first six months. Do they do a $50 price cut with a bundle? Do they actually remove Kinect? At the end of the day I don't want Microsoft to fail with the Xbox but I wouldn't be upset if they did become a bit more focused on the gaming side and less on the multimedia.
While the Kinect definitely is the reason for the price difference, let's wait and see how Microsoft responds after the first six months. Do they do a $50 price cut with a bundle? Do they actually remove Kinect? At the end of the day I don't want Microsoft to fail with the Xbox but I wouldn't be upset if they did become a bit more focused on the gaming side and less on the multimedia.
This has probably been said already so I'm sorry if I am repeating but:
On xbone vs xbox360 launch window sales:
In 2005 to about May 2006 you couldn't get an x360. Supply was low I guess because of the complexity of the hardware to produce. So while the bone is outselling the 360, bone is not supply contrained like the 360 was and I think that if the 360 had the same supply as the bone has the 360 would outsell the bone.
On xbone vs xbox360 launch window sales:
In 2005 to about May 2006 you couldn't get an x360. Supply was low I guess because of the complexity of the hardware to produce. So while the bone is outselling the 360, bone is not supply contrained like the 360 was and I think that if the 360 had the same supply as the bone has the 360 would outsell the bone.
Beerman462
Member
Most likely true.
Imperfected
Member
The key to success or failure is whether or not they manage to meet internal sales targets and revenue goals. That said, with any public company there are always going to be investors who look at competitors and say, "Why are they so much more profitable in this industry than we are? If you guys are so much worse at doing this, why are we giving you so much money to do it when we could be giving it to someone who's better at their job?"
The problem is that every indication we had was that their projections for sales were somewhat on the ambitious side, and that's before they got a bloody nose and had to spend yet another pile of money trying to repair the PR debacles and interest shortfalls that resulted from their pratfall of a reveal. The numbers they need to move to reach profitability have only increased from their initial estimates, and their ability to reach those figures seems to be dwindling by the day.
Full-time investors tend to be very smart - or have people who are that they pay to keep them informed, at least - and can read a data line perfectly well. If the Devices division told them, "We project to have sold X million units by Y date, resulting in Z revenue" then when investors see they're coming up short on sales by the appointed date they're going to assume (probably correctly) that the division can't meet their promises of turning a profit and opt to either cut their funding or get rid of them entirely.
To investors, the X-Box brand has been a litany of broken promises where future profitability is concerned; the prevailing attitude at the moment is not going to be "oh they missed another internal target and will be in the red another two years longer than expected, but we know they'll turn this around eventually". There are serious unanswered questions about the division's ability to ever remain meaningfully profitable in the long term that need to be addressed sooner, not later.
'Complexity' hah. The reason fro the 360 being supply constrained was due to the MASSIVE defect rate coming off the production lines. It wasn't that MS couldn't make 360's fast enough, they just couldn't make enough that passed their bare-bones QA process.
http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com.au/2008/09/console-post-of-week-microsofts-shame.html
Isn't this false? Lobotomy were pretty much the rightest hands the Saturn ever saw, and even they said that their engine on Playstation walked all over the Saturn version.
The Saturn has some great 3D games (such as Sonic R or Virtua Fighter 2) but in most cases it seemed like you needed world-class teams to get it to equal the output of merely competent teams on the Playstation.
Excellent post. People understand that Nintendo is in trouble with their systems, and they understand Sony needs to fix the health of their company as well. But people tend to think because Microsoft has so much money, they will just choose to let Xbox live indefinitely. As you suggest, that's not even close to true. The rumblings about the battles going on behind scenes about the Xbox should be concerning for any Xbox fan going forward if things continue this way for long periods of time.
It's completely false. There isn't a single Saturn game that could back this up. The likes of Ridge Racer Type 4, Tekken 3, Wip3out SE etc all destroyed the Saturn's best 3d efforts. Multi-plat games that saw both PS1 and Saturn versions had a huge gulf in quality, with the Saturn game coming off much worse. Tomb Raider, Wipeout 2097 etc.
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
Are you intentionally trying to forget that last gen was basically two gens in length? That's really the reason PS3 caught up to 360 sales worldwide, because the gen was longer.
A lot of people are in for a rude awakening if they think this will be another 8/9-year gen. It's not gonna be.
RR4 and Tekken 3 both came out right or about after the time Saturn was discontinued. Devs were already winding down development for the system in 1997, and very few were putting their top teams on games there after awhile. So it's not fair to, say, compare Tekken 3 to Virtua Fighter 2. The better comparison would be Tekken 2 vs. Virtua Fighter 2, for example.
Also there are videos of cancelled games such as Shenmue and VF3 that show what the Saturn would've been capable of had the dev. scene stuck around as long as it did with PlayStation.
I'm not saying Saturn was secretly the better 3D machine; I'm saying that in the given hands (usually AM2) for a given release year, you can usually find a Saturn game that at least went toe-to-toe with an equivalent PS1 game. Virtua Fighter 2 and Tekken 2 were roughly neck-and-neck visually, but VF2 looks better because it had higher resolution. NiGHTS looked about as good as Crash 1, etc.
Of course Saturn loses if you compare Panzer Dragoon to Omega Boost; one came out much later.
Beerman462
Member
Yup, the days of MS throwing good money after bad at the Xbox are over. Their plan this gen was to be the medium through which all entertainment flowed into the living room, from streaming services to Live TV. They were going to use that position to sell ads or at least provide meaningful feed back on ads through Kinect. Now they have to either drop Kinect and the price or take a loss. I don't know that they can afford to do either from a PR/investor standpoint.
If MS were hurting for money and Windows were doing gangbusters on mobile/tablets I'd be inclined to agree with you.
The mobile and tablet markets are where OS are growing, and they're consumer markets. Consumers demand their devices help them do work and entertain them. To make Windows relevant in a post-PC world Microsoft has to do both.
You can prattle on about going enterprise only if you wish, but my response is that such large and growing consumer support for alternative OS and cloud infrastructure will just make them more attractive to developers and cloud environments more robust in terms of IT support, and the business world will eventually give in.
MS has to attract developers to Windows and they can only do that with a significant and growing user base. They have to offer productivity and entertainment, because the competition does. They can't choose just one unless they want to watch Windows continue falling over the next several decades.
Giving up on an already established entertainment brand, which generates billions and is poised better than its competitors to take on an all-digital entertainment world, where there is not yet an established all-in-one digital entertainment storefront, is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever read on this forum.
MS will keep Xbox, their only entertainment brand, through several years into a mostly digital sales era (about a decade from now) and see how they do before giving up on entertainment all together. Even then I'd be more inclined to believe they'll just change the scope of Xbox before giving it up entirely.
And holy shit at how people can't see Microsoft expanding Xbox onto all Windows devices. It's already there and has been for a few years. It's just going to become more prominent. Xbox is NOT just about the living room. Yeah, it's where they started and where they are strongest, but it's not all they're doing for Xbox. They regularly publish mobile/tablet games, they ported several XBLA games, Project Spark is PC and Xbox One, Lift London is exclusively mobile/tablet focused, and even the most recent Rare job posting calls for multi-device responsive design experience. There's likely more coming.
Yankee Ruin X
Member
I think that the biggest decider for most people this gen is getting the system that their friends have because of online multiplayer. People say it is a martathon but really from what I see with my friends it is a tremendous shift purely because the early adopters have all jumped from 360 to PS4 and now all the more casual people in my circle of friends are picking up PS4's as well purely so they can play online with us.
At the start of last gen the 360 got the early lead because of the early adopters and then when CoD4 came out all of sudden a lot of my friends who weren't into gaming suddenly were asking me what to get because they want to play that game, so naturally I said 360 then you can play with me, eventually everyone I work with had a 360 so we could all play together. Going into this gen I jumped to PS4 along with a few others at launch and while all my other colleagues were still in the MS camp, when it came down to buying a next gen console they are buying PS4's instead of Xbox Ones purely because that's what we have and they want to be able to play with us.
So I think MS could be in more trouble than they think because I think with this gen everyone is already aware of how important online multiplayer is and they will buy whatever their friends have got, so if all their friends are picking up PS4's then it doesn't really matter what MS do as they are still going to get a PS4 because that's they only way they can all play together.
At the start of last gen the 360 got the early lead because of the early adopters and then when CoD4 came out all of sudden a lot of my friends who weren't into gaming suddenly were asking me what to get because they want to play that game, so naturally I said 360 then you can play with me, eventually everyone I work with had a 360 so we could all play together. Going into this gen I jumped to PS4 along with a few others at launch and while all my other colleagues were still in the MS camp, when it came down to buying a next gen console they are buying PS4's instead of Xbox Ones purely because that's what we have and they want to be able to play with us.
So I think MS could be in more trouble than they think because I think with this gen everyone is already aware of how important online multiplayer is and they will buy whatever their friends have got, so if all their friends are picking up PS4's then it doesn't really matter what MS do as they are still going to get a PS4 because that's they only way they can all play together.
speculawyer
Member
Is this a joke? They've been reacting since E3. Maybe earlier.
speculawyer
Member
Oh, I think MS knows this and that is why they have reacted so much. Cancelling all the DRM stuff, allowing used games, buying up Gears of War,
working on a Kinect-less SKU?
Deputy Moonman
Member
Are you serious? From what I remember before the consoles released in November, people were concerned that the Xbox one would sell at all. MS was untrustworthy. DRM was the worst news in the history of console releases. And all the preorder numbers indicated that no one was interested in the Xbox one. And yet November and December were just fine for microsoft. What are these behind the scene battle rumblings you speak of? If these things continue going forward? Well obviously. If you are about to walk off a cliff and don't stop or change directions you are going to fall off the cliff. Let's wait and see if MS actually walks off the cliff. I highly doubt it. They have demonstrated their ability to change policies in a hurry even if out of desperation. They have plenty if time and plenty of opportunity to surprise people.
Yeah I'm gonna invoke the one-year rule (or "first Christmas after launch rule") here. For starters we don't have very much real next-gen-only software yet.
Maybe this is said a lot, but around the first holiday after launch is when the first wave of software for consoles hits that's actually compelling enough to draw large groups of customers who aren't early adopters. Just look at everything that came out for the PS2 in 2001 compared to its launch lineup. Look at when games like Oblivion and Gears arrived on the 360.
Almost everything we've got now that isn't cross-gen is pretty much just typical launch software, which usually only early adopters will put up with. E3 will probably see announcements of more significant next-gen-only software, some of it releasing this fall, but we already know about a few promising games like Witcher 3 and Evolve. I guess you can talk about whether those games will help out the PS4 or Xbox One more, or whether they'll help console gaming collectively enough. I think we can agree at least one new IP within the next couple years will become a new mainstream hit though, and thus a new reason for people to buy consoles.
Maybe this is said a lot, but around the first holiday after launch is when the first wave of software for consoles hits that's actually compelling enough to draw large groups of customers who aren't early adopters. Just look at everything that came out for the PS2 in 2001 compared to its launch lineup. Look at when games like Oblivion and Gears arrived on the 360.
Almost everything we've got now that isn't cross-gen is pretty much just typical launch software, which usually only early adopters will put up with. E3 will probably see announcements of more significant next-gen-only software, some of it releasing this fall, but we already know about a few promising games like Witcher 3 and Evolve. I guess you can talk about whether those games will help out the PS4 or Xbox One more, or whether they'll help console gaming collectively enough. I think we can agree at least one new IP within the next couple years will become a new mainstream hit though, and thus a new reason for people to buy consoles.
Uno Venova
Banned
Not a few months before no, pent up demand for next gen consoles and a dedicated Xbox fanbase who were dead set on buying the sequel was telegraphed.
Imperfected
Member
To be honest - full disclosure?
As a gamer, I love my 360 and have over a hundred games for it. I own a PS3 and a gaming PC, but the 360 was usually my platform of choice for most of the generation. (PC took over once the age of the console started to show, but that's neither here nor there.) I also absolutely despise everything Microsoft has done "for"/to the PC platform, and as a gamer I would much prefer they carry on pretending they don't know it exists.
As an investor (and Seattle resident besides), I feel the X-Box brand needs to be gone yesterday and they need to - and have always needed to - be placing the money they've frivolously wasted on what's increasingly become an ugly vanity project on advancing PC as a platform.
Your "vision" of X-Box as the gateway to a Windows World is the same broken, stupid-ass vision that's gimped this enterprise for a decade. Microsoft could have been the ones in control of Steam. They could have been the ones out there right now trying to bring a literal Windows PC box into the living room - the "Steam Box" could have been everything they ever wanted from this moronic exercise - and it all would have cost them a miniscule fraction of what the X-Box has, if Valve's operating costs are anything to go by.
At this very moment - cursing their name and shaking their fist all the while - Valve is doing more to advance Windows as a platform and put it into living rooms than Microsoft has done in over ten years and untold billions of dollars of wasted time and effort. That, to me, is absolutely unconscionable as an investor; I can completely understand the wrong-thinking that (in the moment) caused board members to believe the X-Box project originally had merit, but I cannot abide the continued doubling-down long after the fact when there are better roads to be taken that are painfully obvious to anyone who cares to look.
Yankee Ruin X
Member
I'm sure MS do but will it be too late. The example from my workplace is interesting because there is 17 of us and we all had 360's by the end of last gen purely so we could all play together. Only one person bought a Xbox One at launch, one bought both an Xbox One and a PS4, 4 of us bought just PS4's. Since then 6 others have bought PS4's and the guy who bought an Xbox One begrudgingly sold it the other day to get a PS4 because he was fed up of listening to us talking about our "awesome games on Battlefield last night" while he was stuck with nobody to play with. The rest of my co-workers will also be picking up PS4's as soon as they can so that's an entire shift in my workplace to PS4 which before release we never saw happening as it was Xbox all the way until us launch day buyers thought the PS4 was a much better deal.
It just makes me wonder how much this type of thinking will happen and if others are seeing a similar thing happening.
These. Microsoft's in a no win situation. One of two things will happen:
1.) Microsoft keeps the price where it is, but lose a ton of marketshare & sales to Sony, or
2.) Cut the price to $400 & lose a ton of money off of each Xbox One console sold, causing their shareholders to revolt & to spin the Xbox brand off.
ThoughtsOfSpeaking
Banned
The questipn that should be on everybodys mind is, how much can fight Sony and still stay profitable. We all know Microsoft has deeper pockets and we know that a console which is grossy behind can play catch up (PS3 being the textbook case) but at what cost?
Can Microsoft afford to continously buy exclusives, run price promotions and advertise without courting the ire of investors? Can they afford to throw away the relative slim profits of the 360 away ad Sony did with the PS2?
Or do they hunker down, stay the course and concentrate on making as much out of the hardcore fanbase they do have and accept they cant beat sony in marketshare?
A bunch of shoulda, coulda, woulda, I'm not going to entertain those at all because it's not present circumstance. The made some bad bets and several markets shifted. Are they completely lost? No, not when the mobile and cloud markets are still infants with decades in front of them. Do you give up on them after a few missteps and just throw your hands up? No, not when you still hold significant marketshare. They can course correct and it's in their best interests for the longevity of the company to keep coming to market until it's absolutely certain they cannot compete.
What are these better roads they can take right now that aren't already occupied or soon to be occupied by Google and Apple? How do they not end in several years, or decades later, with Microsoft's lunch being eaten because the competition figured out how to be in people's lives for work and play?
CheDominik
Member
Sounds like an awesome place to work. My coworkers talk about golf and overpriced meals. Oh and new apple stuff they bought.
1.21Gigawatts
Banned
They don't give a shit whether they're winning or losing the console war.
They only care about whether they're making money or not.
They only care about whether they're making money or not.
Uno Venova
Banned
Oh they definitely care, more than making money, I doubt it, but they want to beat the PS4. The bundles and retailer deals made so far, their comments in the past gen about winning in the US, them trumpeting numbers on twitter whenever they come out on top indicates that for sure.
Imperfected
Member
Present circumstance? Let me tell you about present circumstance.
Valve and their various project partners are about to start selling Steam Machines. Though they are not Windows devices, you, I, and everyone else knows that the vast majority of them will dual-boot Windows for at least the next few years due to how much of the Steam library is Windows-reliant. These are going to be paid installations - either at the standard bulk price for PC manufacturer preload or even retail MSRP for Steam Machines that don't have a dual-boot option from the manufacturer - meaning they will actually be generating more revenue per unit sold for Microsoft than the XB1, and actually bringing users into the "Windows ecosystem".
Now, in present circumstance - sitting on a division that's never been a significant profit generator, that appears to have no bright future, and is currently clearly struggling - if the Devices division comes and says, "We need to up our budget. Sony's eating our lunch and now everyone else is taking a bite, too. We can't stay in this if we don't spend more" then what is the rational way to respond to that?
I know what I would say: you expect me to give you guys more money to waste trying to fight against a product which is, unintentionally or not, more profitable for us than yours is, and aligns more closely with the goals of our core business and overall brand strategy? Right, let me get right on that.
Get out of the console business, and get back into the PC gaming business. I hate to say that as a gamer, because the last thing I want is for Microsoft to come back and pull off another fuck-up in the PC space. The fact of the matter is, though, that PC games are inherently movers of Windows while console games are not, and the two are largely at odds with each other. The support for X-Box has always been supporting a side-project that is inherently bad for the core business, because every X-Box unit sold is a potential PC gamer missed out on.
Windows is still the de facto platform for PC gaming, but if Microsoft continues fighting their winter war in Russia they're going to come back to a mess at home; in another three years the adoption rate of Linux distros may have actually reached the point where people can start to transition away, and Microsoft's done such a damn fine job of making Valve want to get away from Windows that they're likely to push that.
Put the money back into PC gaming. Work with the giants of the industry. Give Valve a reason to want PC gaming to continue to be a Windows feature, rather than having to begrudgingly accept it as such and work quietly to undermine it. Give gamers a reason to want to play games on Windows PCs - whether in the traditional sense, or on Surface, or on a living room box like a Steam Machine - rather than consoles.
Or, you know, keep undermining PC as a platform and thus removing one of the few reasons that actually remain for home use of Windows, driving even more users to iOS devices and consoles and thus ensuring the only future left for the company is in enterprise because no one actually bothers to own a home PC anymore. Force a wedge even deeper between Microsoft and PC game outlets, until Steam takes their ball and goes home. That's a great plan, too! I'm sure no investor would look at you like you were some kind of idiot if you proposed that to them.
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