TheStreet TV's Jack Mohr has already found his top European stocks to own in 2015. Now he's looking for the top five S&P 500 stocks to own in the new year.
Mohr has already said his fifth stock is social media juggernaut Facebook (FB) and No. 4 is the struggling financial giant Citigroup (C) . Who's third? Microsoft (MSFT) , Mohr said Wednesday.
One of the big catalysts going into the new year also happens to be somewhat of a "bold prediction," he said -- speculating that Microsoft would spinoff its Xbox business.
Xbox is near the top of its sales cycle, meaning Microsoft would likely fetch top dollar for the entity. Not that the $88.7 billion in cash and short-term investments are small by any means, but a spinoff of Xbox would give the tech giant even more cash. This could allow for an increase in its dividend or potentially in the company's share buyback program.
Microsoft's Activision subsidiary announced today that it is opening a new game development studio to take advantage of the huge talent pool growing in Poland. It'll be the second Activision studio based in the region, joining Infinity Ward Krakow, although this studio is, in fact, not working on Call of Duty.
Microsoft is pushing for no "red line" for what games could come to PlayStation, and it all revolves around Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood's plans to increase every department's margins.
"The plan to move Xbox games to other platforms is codenamed "Latitude" internally, and I know there's debate and unease at Microsoft about whether or not this is a good idea. More upcoming Microsoft-owned games slated for PlayStation are already being developed. At least for now, they're potentially obvious games you'd most likely expect. And yes, while it's true Microsoft is a prolific publisher on PlayStation already, it has typically revolved around specific franchises like Minecraft. From what I've heard, Microsoft is pushing for no "red line" for what games could come to PlayStation, and it all revolves around Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood's mandate to increase every department's margins. "
Yeah, they are going to kill Xbox hardware.
"Yeah, they are going to kill Xbox hardware."
It's for the best.
Quit stringing along xbox fans and screwing over PlayStation owners.
An Xbox game on a Playstation. Never in my years of gaming did i ever thought this was gonna happen.
No way can they get rid of the hardware as probably 90% of game pass subscribers are hardware users.
Highly doubtful those users will move to PC or Cloud to subscribe there and the competition (Sony and Nin) will never have gamepass on their system.
If they want to keep the current subscribers, they need to keep releasing new hardware.
I'm not convinced, why then announce that they're actually working on the next-generation Xbox with “the largest technical leap”, and also looking into handhelds now?
Not like MS don’t drop things a hot potato if it is not performing. Look at MS history to see products or platforms discontinued. Xbox is not a charity for MS, it needs to make money and the ABK was the last roll of the dice for Xbox.
Xbox hardware team members have been incorporated into surface team
This perhaps shows they are not expecting big things from Xbox as a separate entity
Seems like they are planning to win next gen. All the acquisitions were this generation and nobody except Xbox fans expect games from the acquisitions any time soon.
I’m sure Microsoft can afford to lose money on the short term, pretty sure they do risk assessment when acquiring many companies and spending billions, they’ll be fine lol.
i think it will kill off the xbox brand. windows will be fine.
but there is and would be a chance that xbox might be killed off in the future. if they fail to make the money they put in. imo.
They wont kill it, but they will go fully PC while keeping xbox as a brand, and go multiplatform for the most part. They will also work tirelessly to diminish console gaming’s importance.
It would be best if Xbox goes the way of Sega, just make and publish games. I know I myself will not support them at all with buying games from them, you all can. 🙃
The Xbox brand will live for the games. I don’t expect Microsoft to entirely drop out of gaming hardware. They make Surface tablets and laptops. They’ll make Xbox branded hardware for those that want it.
"Microsoft is pushing for no "red line" for what games could come to PlayStation"
Forza and Starfield next?
Starfield would be no surprise and there's the rumor that it will come to Playstation after the Shattered Space DLC, Forza (along with Halo and Gears of War) I find less likely but I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually end up on PlayStation too, especially if Xbox give up on hardware and go the Sega route.
Not to worried about forza. I'd rather see others like what inxile and obsidian are working on. Starfield sounds like it needs more time in the oven so let it cook first imo. If starfield and it's a small if does release on ps it'll be in the fall around the time for dlc or right at the dlc and come packaged with it.
In the words of Phil Spencer when he was talking about Nintendo last year
“It's just taking a long time for Microsoft to see that their future exists off of their own hardware"
100%!!
I wonder what happened to that dude that was always here posting those court articles with cartoons about MS spending all those billions in studios. He suddenly disappeared, I guess he doesn't like bad news when the green brand is in trouble. No new articles from him as of late...
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With Arkane Austin no more and Lyon living for who knows how long, the superb Dishonored is in serious danger; Microsoft cannot be trusted.
I love the Dishonored series so much and really want Dishonored 3. Microsoft better not screw this up.
I mean, I think the fans will probably kill Arkane Lyon by cooking up reasons to hate whatever they do next without playing it. I've never seen a game so artificially disliked as Deathloop.
Lol, why don't we just say, we are worried about all studios owned by MS now. They will keep closing studios until they have none left ...🙄
Just merge them all into a single studio, have it churn out a single Call of Duty every year and call it a day, lol.
I think it's becoming clear based on matt bootys comments there's no future for any IP that can't sell above 10 million within the launch window. But is also a small game that gives them prestige
/S it's beyond a joke right now
Well MS is now the 2nd most valuable company on earth
recently passing Exxon Moble
http://www.foxbusiness.com/...
The Xbox is too intrenched in MS to go anywhere, Say hello Cortona
The Xbox division has been highly profitable since 2008 inclusive.
And the brand has just had it's best year ever
increasing marketshare by around 50% from the 360.
ppl buy other money making MS licensed products to go along with their new console:
-XBL
-second controller
-play and charge kit
-Kinect tv stand
-more games
outperform who?
Too be honest if it did happen that they did sell it everyone who has a X1 and is going too buy a X1 in the future would find it really hard too trust that company who buys it.
Also there chances who winning this gen would be very slim and they would loose millions or even billions in the long term trying too make a profit or even making there money back at all. Not many companies can take that chance like MS did.
selling and spinning off are not remotely the same thing , not that either is going to happen .
Xbox is a massive financial burden and selling that is highly unlikely.
They'd shut it down before they tried to spin it off.