Mere profitability is not enough and is not the goal in and of itself. The goal is high margin profitability. With their core products, Microsoft have 90% margins (Windows, Office, Enterprise), and a stranglehold on the marketplace. Consumer Electronics on the other hand, struggle to get about 10% margins and that is no where good enough.
Mattrick's plan would have given them a stranglehold and those high margins. An Xbox with a cut of all software, yearly memberships, and extensive Kinect-fueled biometrics for advertising would have been a goldmine if the competition had been the Wii U and a 2013 version of launch PS3. But Cerny's PS4 is a great console and so the Xbox division is in a hard spot: how to justify their exsistence within Microsoft given MS expectations?
Spencer's moves--such as buying Tomb Raider/TitanFall exclusivity, getting rid of Kinect, packing-in games, adding Games-with-Gold, and buying Gears of War IP--do nothing to get Xbox into the high margins. In fact, they all reduce margins. IMO, his mandate for his first year is nothing more than damage control. At best, he is going to do what Sony did with the PS3 in its first 18+ months, i.e. making the console into a product that isn't actively repulsive. Which leads to the question: what are they planning next?
The big push for MS before SN became CEO was 'one microsoft', wherein every division was supposed to work with every other division and create seamless products in a walled garden. I believe that this is still their goal, and SN is just the guy to make that into a reality.
MS would not make Windows 10 free for Windows 8 users and give away the mobile version without a solid plan for monetizing users. As such, MS' next big push is undoubtedly going to be getting people to use the Windows store 100% of the time. The easiest way of doing that in Windows is by doing what Apple does with OSX. In OSX a user cannot add software that hasn't been downloaded from the Apple store without toggling a hidden setting. Without that toggle, OSX puts up an ominous warning screen that adding software from untrusted sites will lead to ruination. This, in effect, forces all software through Apple for regular users who will never change hidden settings.
Their phones and RT tablets already force Windows Store use, which why they give that OS away. So, Xbox will have to do the same. But like Win10, it will have to be done in such a way that doesn't get gamer ire up, i.e. you will still have to be able to buy discs and used games.
So what might they do to get Xbox into the One Microsoft vision? My answer would be Minecraft + integration. The next version of Minecraft is undoubtedly going to be for MS products only and only available on the MS store. This is going to push tens of millions into the MS tablet-desktop-phone-xbox ecosystem. After that, they can make moves to get games like AC moving through the store on PC as well as X1 through crossplay and remote play on tablets if the user has purchased the product from MS store. An integrated X1 that pushes people into the overall ecosystem is a justified high margin x1.
In this scenario, MS wins, xbox division wins, and consumers end up with interoperable products that are very appealing.
