Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates donned a cool leather jacket when he first introduced the Xbox onstage in 2000. More than a decade later, the video game console is still the hippest brand in Microsoft's portfolio. But as the company begins selling its first new Xbox in eight years on Friday, some critics say Microsoft should spin the gaming unit off. They argue that Xbox distracts management from the company's fast-growing cloud computing business and its effort to catch up to rivals in tablet and smartphone sales.
Here are Xbox's pros and cons:
Restaurant management meets roguelike. PlateUp! rewards planning over speed, systems thinking over reflexes. Build your kitchen layout between service rounds, automate what you can, and watch the complexity compound. The co-op implementation turns communication into the core mechanic. Chaotic, strategic, and endlessly replayable.
Photograph birds and clean up a Mediterranean island. Alba is short, warm, and quietly important. The wildlife catalogue drives exploration naturally. The conservation message lands because the game earns it through gameplay rather than lecturing. A family-friendly adventure that respects its audience's intelligence.
Unpack boxes across a lifetime of house moves. Every object placement tells a story without a single word of dialogue. The spatial puzzle design is deceptively precise. Where you put the diploma, the stuffed animal, the ex's gift, all communicates. Still the best wordless narrative in games.
No. Xbox needs MS though. I think Xbox has become mostly unwanted by MS. With Xbox looking to lose a lot of market share next gen, I think it would be best for MS as a whole to part ways with Xbox. Spin off Xbox and concentrate on more profitable sectors. Xbox have done more damage than good for MS.
Too late now to shift to focus to tablet and smartphones. Surface was an epic fail and Apple and Google are too far ahead. Microsoft still makes billions of profit sticking to Windows, Xbox and Office brands. In fact I argue that Microsoft lost focus when it attempted to break into the mobile market. Windows 8 is obvious made with mobile in mind and why so many windows users despised it.
Its a bs number...
Xbox has been rolled into a division that includes surface and windows phone.. If the losses are credible, it very well has nothing to do with Xbox rather the other two failing products..
But I doubt even that is accurate.. Both are good devices but struggle to gain market share
Why even invest into R&D then, if you're just going to sell off the Xbox division?
No, they honestly don't. Microsoft are known to specialize in software, and they make tons of profit in that category alone, and have been for many years. They really havent done well in the hardware department (Zune for example).