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Ballmer Justifies 360's Costs
Next Generation follows up on news last week of the enormous financial burden the 360's launch has placed on Microsoft. CEO Steve Ballmer sent around an email discussing the company's bright outlook with the new console. From the article: "While Xbox 360 hardware itself is the most prominent area of videogame-related investment, Ballmer indicated that further development of Xbox Live is also integral to the success of the platform and its respective division, saying, "We must execute our Live strategy with speed and precision." Relatedly, Live's downtime yesterday has resulted in an underwhelming feature addition: messaging.
Microsoft is in the business of entering markets it knows it shouldn't enter. Stick with what you know... operating systems. The original article states that Microsoft posted an operating loss of $388 million from their Xbox 360 production, but that this loss will bring "long term rewards". Didn't the Xbox experience similar losses? $388 is a lot of money which could be used hiring and training programmers to get Vista out of the door. Why does Microsoft feel it needs to stick its head into every single niche of every single sector? As if they didn't have enough troubles already with their own OS, they want to waste money competing against Google search, Google maps, Playstation, and Nintendo. They're bullying people at their own expense and they need someone to look at them and tell them what they're doing wrong, because they can't do it themselves.