A bunch of shoulda, coulda, woulda, I'm not going to entertain those at all because it's not present circumstance.
Present circumstance? Let me tell you about present circumstance.
Valve and their various project partners are about to start selling Steam Machines. Though they are not Windows devices, you, I, and everyone else knows that the vast majority of them will dual-boot Windows for at least the next few years due to how much of the Steam library is Windows-reliant. These are going to be
paid installations - either at the standard bulk price for PC manufacturer preload or even retail MSRP for Steam Machines that don't have a dual-boot option from the manufacturer - meaning they will actually be generating more revenue per unit sold
for Microsoft than the XB1, and
actually bringing users into the "Windows ecosystem".
Now, in
present circumstance - sitting on a division that's never been a significant profit generator, that appears to have no bright future, and is currently clearly struggling - if the Devices division comes and says, "We need to up our budget. Sony's eating our lunch and now everyone else is taking a bite, too. We can't stay in this if we don't spend more" then what is the rational way to respond to that?
I know what I would say: you expect me to give you guys
more money to waste trying to fight
against a product which is, unintentionally or not,
more profitable for us than yours is, and aligns more closely with the goals of our core business and overall brand strategy? Right, let me get right on that.
What are these better roads they can take right now that aren't already occupied or soon to be occupied by Google and Apple? How do they not end in several years, or decades later, with Microsoft's lunch being eaten?
Get out of the console business, and get back into the PC gaming business. I
hate to say that as a gamer, because the last thing I want is for Microsoft to come back and pull off another fuck-up in the PC space. The fact of the matter is, though, that PC games are inherently movers of Windows while console games are
not, and the two
are largely at odds with each other. The support for X-Box has always been supporting a side-project that is inherently
bad for the core business, because every X-Box unit sold is a potential PC gamer missed out on.
Windows is still the de facto platform for PC gaming, but if Microsoft continues fighting their winter war in Russia they're going to come back to a mess at home; in another three years the adoption rate of Linux distros may have actually reached the point where people can start to transition away, and Microsoft's done such a damn fine job of making Valve
want to get away from Windows that they're likely to push that.
Put the money back into PC gaming. Work
with the giants of the industry. Give Valve a reason to
want PC gaming to continue to be a Windows feature, rather than having to begrudgingly accept it as such and work quietly to undermine it. Give gamers a reason to want to play games on Windows PCs - whether in the traditional sense, or on Surface, or on a living room box like a Steam Machine - rather than consoles.
Or, you know, keep undermining PC as a platform and thus removing one of the few reasons that actually remain for home use of Windows, driving even more users to iOS devices and consoles and thus ensuring the only future left for the company is in enterprise because no one actually bothers to own a home PC anymore. Force a wedge even deeper between Microsoft and PC game outlets, until Steam takes their ball and goes home. That's a great plan, too! I'm sure no investor would look at you like you were some kind of idiot if you proposed that to them.