Earlier quoted context omitted.
Other examples include Windows Phone and XBox both of which seemingly came from nowhere in a 'just get it done' style. There's some real love and skill that's been put into the XBox for example, just browse around it some time. My perspective is coloured by the developer stuff as that's what I'm most interested in.
Windows Phone came out 3+ years (almost 4) after the iPhone. It was the most obvious and slowest product launch in recent memory. It also hasn't been a great success. If Windows Phone is proof that Microsoft is doing well....It also wasn't some spontaneous/organic product that just sprung up. It was a massive coordinated company-wide event that took years to "pull off". As for the Xbox, it's a huge loss leaders. The…
From what I've gathered, the entertainment division has been making a profit since 2008. It's tough to get solid numbers on the contribution of the 360 to that, since the division contained things like the Zune for a while. I would be surprised if they don't end up profiting overall on the 360.
Sure, that might not make up for the losses on the original Xbox, but that generation was always about gaining a foothold, not making a profit. MS didn't have a horse in race until a year after the release of the PS2. To go from that to the market share that the 360 commands right now is impressive.
Eve that said I don't think making money on console sales was ever the main reason MS got into the market in the first place. I think they realized that gaming consoles were going to become an important part of household entertainment, even outside of gaming itself. Consoles are becoming one-stop shops for all forms of enterainment nowadays. I use my systems to watch disc-based media, streaming off other devices in my house, Netflix, etc. MS would be in a really tough spot if they had let Sony snatch up this market without putting up a fight.