>>3918>Microsoft expects Xbox to be profitableNo they don't and awhile back some of their most prominent shareholders even complained about it demanding that they drop the brand. Almost a decade later and they were proven right, the funds could have been better spent.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/02/05/investors-want-microsofts-new-ceo-to-kill-xbox-bing-and-surface/Again this has to do with recirculating funds in a global market to avoid taxes. They didn't pay anything for Mincraft/Mojang for example.
https://www.ibtimes.com/minecraft-nokia-skype-how-microsoft-buys-overseas-companies-avoid-us-taxes-1693869Do you really think Microsoft actually spends over a billion dollars redesigning the xbox controller every single generation? Or that the 11 billions they spent on marketing the xbox in Japan in a single generation doesn't seem odd? It's an elaborate tax shelter, it doesn't have to turn a profit.
>They were both made by studios with pedigreeIrrelevant when most of the work is outsourced to new grads in India and SEAsia. Again go look at the credits for starfield and be amazed at how few western looking names are in it, maybe 5% of them.