Will Microsoft Sell Off Its Entertainment Division? 404
An anonymous reader writes "Forbes analyst Adam Hartung has predicted that Microsoft will sell off its entertainment division, which includes Xbox, in the coming years. He even goes so far as to list Sony or Barnes & Noble as potential buyers. Lets forget how crazy this sounds for a moment and focus on the reasons why Hartung believes such a sale will happen. It basically comes down to Windows 8, and how poorly it is selling. Combine that with falling sales of PCs, the Surface RT tablet not doing so great, the era of more than one PC in the home disappearing, and Microsoft has a big problem. The problem not only stems from the PC market not growing, but because Microsoft relies so heavily on Windows and Office for revenue. With that in mind, Hartung believes Steve Ballmer will do anything and everything to save Windows, including ditching entertainment and therefore Xbox."
MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years (Score:5, Interesting)
I've not understood MS's strategy around gaming for years now. Don't get me wrong, I owned an original Xbox and liked it, I own a 360 now and like it a lot - but I've never understood why MS would choose to move into the console market.
I'd have thought that there's much more of an incentive for them to make Windows work as a gaming platform. After all, what's one of the biggest reasons that people shy away from switching OSes? The games. Running modern commercial games consistently and in a relatively hassle-free manner is - and has for quite a long time - been one of the things you can do on Windows that you just can't do on other OSes.
So they launch the original Xbox which is basically - at launch at least - the console that runs games you'd otherwise have expected to be focussed on the PC (Halo and Knights of the Old Republic were both from genres that the PC utterly dominated at the time). Then the 360 comes along and - for quite a long time - if the only reason you stick with Windows is gaming... then why not just buy a 360?
And then as we get to the late-cycle point where PC gaming really starts to outstrip what the consoles can do (even on a bargain-bucket PC), they go and foul it all up with Windows 8.
It's like MS is determined to take one of its biggest advantages in the OS market and hammer it into oblivion.
They make periodic efforts to "get serious" about the PC as a gaming platform, but these tend to be inconsistent, badly thought through and horribly unsuccessful. Games for Windows Live, anybody? With Valve looking at the PC gaming market in a distinctly predatory manner, MS should be seriously worried.
And while it's not such a major matter, they've also made some really odd choices with their internally developed games. First they shut down the Flight Simulator series - a brand with immense loyalty from its enthusiast following - abandoning the market to competitors. Then they try to come back with Flight - a free-to-play-pay-to-actually-do-anything monstrosity that discards the series's historic strengths.
Selling off their entertainment division? At the point where they're finally making a profit from console gaming? It would fit...
Steve Ballmer (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This article is bullshit! (Score:4, Interesting)
"When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1967
Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years (Score:5, Interesting)
Xbox is a foothold in the living room (Score:5, Interesting)
Why on earth would they sell that off? Makes absolutely no sense. This type of reporting is totally and utterly a pile of crap. Must be a slow news day and this guy has an article quota to keep.
A far more Microsoft-ie approach to this would be (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, as I understand it, the 360 did well in the 'longer haul' of this generation. While the clear winner was the Wii, it has effectively been dead for a couple of years, with the 360 making leads over the PS3 in Europe and I believe, the US?
So... if Microsoft see the 720 as being 'potentially a success' on its own two legs, what would MS do? Given recent history, they'd find a way of jamming Metro into it, somehow. I can see the 720 as being some Windows RT inspired device, aimed at being to your living room what your WP8 is when you're mobile, your Windows Surface device when you're semi-mobile, and your Windows 8 desktop when you're at a desk.
The fact that WP8, Surface and Windows 8 are clearly failing (miserably, in the case of WP8 and Surface) is unlikely to deter MS - Ballmer has been one of the most stubborn CEO's in recent history. His strategy to keep doing the wrong thing, no matter what sales, user feedback, OEM feedback might say is quite remarkable. Zune will succeed! Oh. Well, WP7 will succeed! Oh... er... XNA is doing well in the indie market, let's scrap it! .Net's entrenched in business and enterprise, let's suggest it's second class now! Let's buy Skype and just screw it in to everything we do! Let's do the Surface hardware on our own, our OEM partners will be fully supportive!
I seriously believe a Magic 8 Ball running Microsoft would do a better job, as decisions made entirely by random would have a better chance of sometimes being successful.
If Ballmer continues on this route, either MS will win massively in the long run (by being such an incredible visionary that he blind-sided the entire technology market, and all his ideas thus far have been part of some master plan), or (seemingly more likely) he will run them into the ground, until there's nothing left but a software company looking for a buy out.
And I'm fairly pro-Microsoft. For /., I'd actually be a fan boi.
Re:The Idea Is Actually Not Complete Bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows is dying, office is dead, quit trying to force them! Zune is dead, and windows phone is in the ICU, Microsoft's only somewhat healthy division with a possible future is entertainment, why in the hell would they sell it?
If I were Microsoft, I would launch a new console immediately, featuring kick ass hardware with no dvd/bluray drive and all software is downloaded with a 30% royalty rate, good bye publisher distribution! The current xbox live gold would become free, and a new tier of xbox live would add a free video streaming library like netflix, AND HERE IS THE BIG ONE, a free video GAME library that works like netflix, you can only check out a certain number of games at a time and their save state is wiped when the game is returned. The only games in the this library are older and lower tier ones, much like the netflix movie library.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)