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[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

When your whole company's profit is up 68% and non of your business is loosing money, I don't see why it's a must to disclose the profit of one particular segment of your business. Xbox and Surface now mainly function as a consumer friendly PR tool for Microsoft. And it's working. The Surface and Xbox product garner most of the YouTube views from any Microsoft related Channels. I know some people who don't have a Xbox or Surface wish Microsoft's hardware will just fail but they are the most important marketing division for Microsoft nowadays. I highly doubt Microsoft will just close the Xbox Division.

Nonesense...

MS' primary customers are their business and enterprise customers. It's where they make the prevailing lion's share of their money and will probably always be the case.

You can argue that Surface and Xbox are important to MS as businesses, but they're so far from the most important that those divisions/products could die overnight and MS would hardly break a sweat.

I don't think anyone arguing that things aren't looking so rosy for MS' Xbox division are arguing the division should or will be closed. It's not helpful to the discussion to think in such binary terms (i.e. they're either hunky-dory with nothing to worry about or completely fucked). There's an entire spectrum of conditions in between that will see a business show indicators of the future trajectory of their business between success and failure.

 

[Jeff Freecss]

Nonesense...

MS' primary customers are their business and enterprise customers. It's where they make the prevailing lion's share of their money and will probably always be the case.

You can argue that Surface and Xbox are important to MS as businesses, but they're so far from the most important that those divisions/products could die overnight and MS would hardly break a sweat.

I don't think anyone arguing that things aren't looking so rosy for MS' Xbox division are arguing the division should or will be closed. It's not helpful to the discussion to think in such binary terms (i.e. they're either hunky-dory with nothing to worry about or completely fucked). There's an entire spectrum of conditions in between that will see a business show indicators of the future trajectory of their business between success and failure.

Yes, that's true. But after Microsoft lost the smartphone war because of the "bring your own device" policy many top 500 companies adopted, they realize the consumer market is something they can never give up. They need the consumers to think they are cool again so they don't have to loose to another iPhone. That's why Xbox, Surface, Minecraft, Hololens are more important than ever for Microsoft. They are the things young people think are cool and are willingly to actively follow. It's the weapon for MS to defend the nex iPhone. They are basically marketing props.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Yes, that's true. But after Microsoft lost the smartphone war because of the "bring your own device" policy many top 500 companies adopted, they realize the consumer market is something they can never give up. They need the consumers to think they are cool again so they don't have to loose to another iPhone. That's why Xbox, Surface, Minecraft, Hololens are more important than ever for Microsoft. They are the things young people think are cool and are willingly to actively follow. It's the weapon for MS to defend the nex iPhone. They are basically marketing props.

It's arguable that even the existing iPhone is even competing with any of MS's products and services. So I would question what they would have to fear from the "next iPhone" (i.e. disruptive technology)?

MS has been moving more and more of their focus into cloud services. I would argue they care more about and have more to fear from Amazon in this regard.

Consumer electronics are a distraction at best for MS. Still you have a valid point about ensuring their brand is healthy and well positioned in that segment, but that's far more to do with competition in accessing the best and brightest talent out of schools who want to be associated with "cool" consumer brand companies like Apple.

 

[Liabe Brave]

If I recall on their yearly financials they report on their margins and it was around 40% for the division.

More Personal Computing is their biggest division by far, that number has little direct relation to Xbox.

There is a qualification, its due to the 11% increase in store transactions, which their entire business model works around. That's successful.

Since they have a nearly 35%+ larger userbase, software/subscription revenue only rising by 3% is not a sign of great success. (It's not failure either, of course.)

Xbox is making more money this gen then in previous gen.

Launch-aligned yes, but that's mostly due to the RROD problems. I don't think we have any reason to think they're currently more profitable than the later years of 360.

With gaming revenue being 3% of that increase.

No. Gaming is 3% higher than itself a year ago. That's not a share of Microsoft overall.

S is going to outsell the X 5 to 1....

I disagree, it'll be 3 to 1 at most. There's a bunch of good reasons for current owners to upgrade to One X.