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Just putting Microsoft's financial muscle in perspective...

jufonuk

not tag worthy
Nintendo only does Nintendo related console things.

Sony and MS have other businesses such as movies, operating systems etc.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
The problem with this is that Xbox isn't that relevant to them. Now, they did purchase ABK recently, but I doubt they told the board its purely to expand Xbox. Its for cloud and mobile gaming etc too, maybe even moreso.

Playstation started out as small time within Sony, which didn't take the branch seriously at first. Its now an important pillar to Sony as a whole, which means support will likely be ongoing. MS however, can cut the leash on Xbox tomorrow and shrug it off.
 

Wildebeest

Member
Xbox is so small within MS' corporate umbrella, splitting it off into it's own company wont move the needle. MS stock and profits are already at record highs.

People have been saying MS would kill off gaming for 10 years when Xbox One came out. Since then, MS has released Xbox One X, Series S/X, launched Game Pass, bought Bethesda, bought Activision, and opened up new smaller studios too.

MS isn't leaving gaming and Xbox anytime soon.
Obviously right now, Xbox division is riding high on huge investments from the parent company but in the past its future as part of the company has been in real doubt that went all the way to the top, and it could easily be again. I suppose the biggest problem for them getting rid of it now is that it is now so big that it would be very hard to sell.
 

Chukhopops

Member
The issue isn't MS losing money, it's that the Xbox brand itself doesn't make them any. The Xbox itself sells like complete dog crap and the reality is that every MS published game performs better outside the Xbox. Starfield for example has easily seen the grand share of its success on the PC and not the Xbox. And now stock holders are seeing COD perform astronomically better on the PS5 over the Xbox. The Xbox at this point has become a redundant useless product for MS, there is absolutely no question at all they would make more money if they completly dropped it and move it's games to the Switch, PS5, and PC.
I’m always amazed when people seem to seriously believe that. Really shows the power of simply repeating the same bullshit over a long period of time.
 
RaeyhuJ.png

Microsoft profit margins are pretty impressive.
..and Xbox has massive and growing accountability margins instead!
 
I’m always amazed when people seem to seriously believe that. Really shows the power of simply repeating the same bullshit over a long period of time.
We know that because Xbox told us during the Activision acquisition. Xbox couldn't directly lie to a judge and thus had to cut all the marketing crap and admit they come last in gaming. Without it you would still be claiming Xbox is number 1.
 

twilo99

Member
Playstation started out as small time within Sony, which didn't take the branch seriously at first. Its now an important pillar to Sony as a whole, which means support will likely be ongoing. MS however, can cut the leash on Xbox tomorrow and shrug it off.

I don't know enough about this but at this point its hard for me to tell if Playstation is more important to Sony or the other way around..
 

Chukhopops

Member
We know that because Xbox told us during the Activision acquisition. Xbox couldn't directly lie to a judge and thus had to cut all the marketing crap and admit they come last in gaming. Without it you would still be claiming Xbox is number 1.
You know what exactly? The part I quoted was about how the Xbox brand « doesn’t make MS any money », which is bollocks.

Also I never claimed MS is number 1 lmao, except maybe in controller design.
 

Killer8

Member
Because the rest of the company commands huge profits does not necessarily mean that a lagging sector will be tolerated. Companies amputate losers all the time. I don't think this will happen to Xbox anytime soon but it was a consideration after the failure of Xbox One. Don't believe for a second that anything is immune in business.
 

Gavon West

Spread's Cheeks for Intrusive Ads
Microsoft doesn’t earn that kind of income by supporting loser ventures indefinitely. Gaming will need to deliver or they’ll move on.
Wrong. Dead wrong. Xbox is making profit hence why they continue to invest in it AND Gamepass. Only moving on Xbox will do is growing bigger.

Stop this "Xbox is going to shut down" crap. it's arguably one of the most cringiest, most desperate attempts at building a false narrative in the last decade.
 

twilo99

Member
Wrong. Dead wrong. Xbox is making profit hence why they continue to invest in it AND Gamepass. Only moving on Xbox will do is growing bigger.

Stop this "Xbox is going to shut down" crap. it's arguably one of the most cringiest, most desperate attempts at building a false narrative in the last decade.

It seems to me that it's more "wishful thinking" than an attempt to create a narrative
 
All this thread and no discussion or comparison with Apple. Apple are the most primed company to compete on all gaming fronts against MS/Xbox e.g. hardware, manufacturing, software, datacentres/online services, rich AF, dedicated fanbase etc.

If you want to put financial muscle in perspective then it's Apple vs MS on a long enough timeline. We're very much going to see phones and cloud pushing over the top of console hardware, it's a question of when and not if.
 
All this thread and no discussion or comparison with Apple. Apple are the most primed company to compete on all gaming fronts against MS/Xbox e.g. hardware, manufacturing, software, datacentres/online services, rich AF, dedicated fanbase etc.

If you want to put financial muscle in perspective then it's Apple vs MS on a long enough timeline. We're very much going to see phones and cloud pushing over the top of console hardware, it's a question of when and not if.
Microsoft loves to talk about competing against Apple, Google and Amazon; companies with no AAA gaming IPs to speak of. it is easy to say you are ahead when you are comparing yourself with people with no outputs of their own. But there is something sad about saying you are a faster runner than some guy with no legs.
 

Godot25

Banned
to (perhaps?) overpay for Activision
Lol. Is there anyone who thinks that they overpaid for Activision Blizzard?
Company that generates more than 2 billion of profit per year?
Company that released "DLC" repackaged as a full game and that game will still end up as one of the best selling games of 2023?
Company that has so much successful live service games that Microsoft literally don't need any game in this segment anymore (considering that they have their own successful live service games like Sea of Thieves, Minecraft, TESO etc.)
 

Chastten

Banned
Now I'm sure that they don't like their gaming division losing money or making big public mistakes. But guys....72 billion dollars. I mean...Xbox is nothing to them.

This is exactly why Xbox fans should be worried. Microsoft could axe the Xbox division and it wouldn't matter to their bottom line, while for Sony and Nintendo especially, it's their bread and butter.

Sony and Nintendo aren't going anywhere, Xbox on the other hand I'm not so sure about. There's little use keeping it afloat when even at their best, they're never going to make as much money as the rest of the company.

Also, everyone knows companies like Apple and Microsoft make much more profit than companies in retail/gas/oil/etc, there's just very little margin there
 

FateTrap

Neo Member
There are also many people who say iTunes works much better on macOS than on windows11.
There are often problems on windows with iTunes stability, speed and interface. Which does annoy the hundreds of millions of persons who use iTunes.

How I personally solved this is by using Rhythmbox on GhostBSD. Rhythmbox on GhostBSD works much better than iTunes on windows11.
And GhostBSD is an operating system with noticeably better default sound quality than windows11 if you use an analog connection.

I now have both a more reliable app and higher-quality sound, and this with a free operating system that could hardly be made any more user-friendly.

OLZ2Lxc.png
 
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John Wick

Member
All this thread and no discussion or comparison with Apple. Apple are the most primed company to compete on all gaming fronts against MS/Xbox e.g. hardware, manufacturing, software, datacentres/online services, rich AF, dedicated fanbase etc.

If you want to put financial muscle in perspective then it's Apple vs MS on a long enough timeline. We're very much going to see phones and cloud pushing over the top of console hardware, it's a question of when and not if.
You'll be surprised Xbox fans don't like comparing or competing with Apple much like the company itself. Ms had to go crying to the FTC about Google and search. Why didn't Nadella beat his chest and say let's compete???
 

X-Wing

Member
Does money = success or the other way around?

You see, you can only buy your way to sucess if you are already successful, unless someone just gives you cash to spend.

No one gave Microsoft any gifts in the 80s and 90s, that was top tier engineering and crafty tactics in a ruthless environment.. kill or be killed kinda situation. All of that paid off, so now, yes.. they can "buy" success if that's what they need to do

Yeah… No. Bill bought DOS from a student for less than 100k dollars, changed it a bit and then sold it to IBM and then went behind IBM’s back and sold it to their rivals. Windows was a ripoff of Apple’s OS and the people who actually created spreadsheets software didn’t get a dime because patents were not registered back then. Microsoft’s succes is made of stumping on a lot of people and abusing their position to not allow competition to grow. They are gigantic and have a lot of influence on all layers of society and they have no shame on using that to maintain the status-quo. This is of course true to other companies as well.
 
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twilo99

Member
Yeah… No. Bill bought DOS from a student for less than 100k dollars, changed it a bit and then sold it to IBM and then went behind IBM’s back and sold it to their rivals. Windows was a ripoff of Apple’s OS and the people who actually created spreadsheets software didn’t get a dime because patents were not registered back then. Microsoft’s succes is made of stumping on a lot of people and abusing their position to not allow competition to grow. They are gigantic and have a lot of influence on all layers of society and they have no shame on using that to maintain the status-quo. This is of course true to other companies as well.

Are you are aware of who Apple “ripped off” when it comes to their OS? They were extremely lucky it wasn’t patented..





Look up the story on that Xerox campus in Palo Alto.. fascinating stuff.

What you are describing is Bill playing the game better than his competitors. Did he break any laws? No.. just good old dirty business tactics in an extremely competitive environment. Imagine going up against IBM in the 80s! lol
 

X-Wing

Member
Are you are aware of who Apple “ripped off” when it comes to their OS? They were extremely lucky it wasn’t patented..





Look up the story on that Xerox campus in Palo Alto.. fascinating stuff.

What you are describing is Bill playing the game better than his competitors. Did he break any laws? No.. just good old dirty business tactics in an extremely competitive environment. Imagine going up against IBM in the 80s! lol

Like I said, it is true for other companies as well. It’s much more about luck and having the right move (albeit stumping on others) at the right time than “top tier engineering” like you argued. And then abusing your position to not allow for the competition to grow. The multi antitrust actions didn’t come from thin air.
 
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Red5

Member
I'd argue it has been the exact opposite.
  • Microsoft bought Mixer and spent a buttload of money. They still lost to Twitch.
  • Microsoft bought Nokia for $7.2 billion and ran it to the ground. Google, Samsung, Apple won.
  • Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion. It became a colossal failure. Products like Zoom won.
More often than not, Microsoft's heavy investments have only resulted in huge losses. They have not been successful at most of these ventures.

They also bought LinkedIn for 26Billion$, hugely successful.

MS acquired Hotmail way back in 1997 for around 500million$ and turned that into Outlook, integrated into MS Office and one of the most widely used and bought enterprise software in the world.

They bought Mojang, for around 2 Billion and Minecraft is more successful than ever.

They bought Github, for 8 billion, and that site is as popular as ever with anyone who codes.

They bought Nuance, to bolster speech recognition and AI for 20Billion and that market is skyrocketing.

They have over 50 acquisitions since they were founded, a lot of the stuff they bought was successful, merged into products they already have or to help with R&D.
 

Drell

Member
They also bought LinkedIn for 26Billion$, hugely successful.

MS acquired Hotmail way back in 1997 for around 500million$ and turned that into Outlook, integrated into MS Office and one of the most widely used and bought enterprise software in the world.

They bought Mojang, for around 2 Billion and Minecraft is more successful than ever.

They bought Github, for 8 billion, and that site is as popular as ever with anyone who codes.

They bought Nuance, to bolster speech recognition and AI for 20Billion and that market is skyrocketing.

They have over 50 acquisitions since they were founded, a lot of the stuff they bought was successful, merged into products they already have or to help with R&D.
Good dog
 

Mobilemofo

Member
Microsofts profits are impressive. At the same time, I fervently believe they should rename themselves to Microcunt.

I have nothing further to add to this thread. I bid you all a good evening.
 

Hudo

Member
Maybe Microsoft now can spend some millions to re-remake WarCraft 3. And make the people at Blizzard who are responsible for that piece of shit of a remake publicly apologize and resign.
 
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kruis

Exposing the sinister cartel of retailers who allow companies to pay for advertising space.
They also bought LinkedIn for 26Billion$, hugely successful.

MS acquired Hotmail way back in 1997 for around 500million$ and turned that into Outlook, integrated into MS Office and one of the most widely used and bought enterprise software in the world.

MS bought Hotmail in December 1997.

Outlook 97 was released in January 1997 and worked with Exchange Server 5.0/5.5. It was the successor of the MS Exchange Client and Exchange Server 4.0 that came out in April 1996.
 
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