Despite your facts, which are meaningless to the present, the 360 is making a profit now. You don't want to talk about the past, you want to talk about now and the future, don't you? Don't bother changing the base of your argument because its failing. The 360 is profiting. Its doing very well right now in all regards.
Except that we're arguing about success. Maybe your definition of success is different but in the business world, success is defined by profits. From this standpoint, the Xbox project as a whole has lost billions of dollars and with the volatility of the games console market, Microsoft stands a more than decent chance of never recovering those billions. that doesn't sound like a successful product to me. Maybe it's just my perspective, which is admittedly more business oriented, but from a business perspective the Xbox 360 is not yet a success though it stands a chance of becoming one.
You are the one changing the argument. My argument has remained the same throughout. I don't wish to continue this since it's more video games related. I only brought it up because
it is a fact that MS has been mediocre outside of its Windows and Office monopolies.
Except for the multiple products I listed above that you conveniently ignored.
What multiple products? Every new market that MS has ventured into has been met with mediocrity. ZuneHD? A distant 3rd place. And 2nd place is very very distant from first. Kin? Failure. Windows Mobile? Dead. Xbox? Future uncertain and stands a more than decent chance of never recovering the money spent on it. That's success? Sorry. Your definition of success and mine must be different.
What? Of course not, but just because its compatible with Windows doesn't guarantee success. Did you just gloss over the Vista example because it hurts your argument? You have to understand that this is a relative scale. Sure, Windows will sell in some capacity simply because its Windows, but look at Windows Vista vs Windows 7. Its not even close, 7 is dominating it, because 7 is a very good product. This, is a fact. Same for Office. Being Office compatible is irrelevant. Google Docs and OpenOffice are Office compatible, and free, yet Office still rakes in billions of dollars. Why? Because its a good product. You can't just brush aside a very well made current product because its a part of a line with a history of good, successful products. That's like saying if the Honda Civic sells well, its just because its a Honda Civic, not because its a reliable car. It can be both.
I paid $400 for Vista. It suffered more from bad press than anything. It was not a bad product. And if it was fully incompatible with Windows XP it would have done much much much worse. Windows 7 is a good product but it's mostly a reskinned Vista. I paid $400 for that too. But it would not have fared as well if it was incompatible with Windows XP and Vista. My argument remains the same. Windows 7 and Office is so successful because of the monopoly that MS has built with their Windows OS and Office suite. I'm not saying they would have been unsuccessful products but a lot of their success can be attributed to being a continuation of a successful monopoly.
First off, I think you need to brush up on the definition of "forward looking". A forward looking product is a product for the future. For example - Windows Phone 7 is the future of Microsoft's mobile business - it is a forward looking product. It was built from the ground up to anticipate future needs. Whereas Windows Phone 6.5 was built as a backward-looking product that maintained old compatibility to get it 'good enough' for right now, knowing it would be abandoned.
Windows Phone 7 is a reactionary product. The UI is different and certainly intriguing but what does it do that is fundamentally different or better than iOS or Android? What future needs is it anticipating? Nothing that I can think of. It's not a forward looking product. It's different and it moves the smart phone market forward but it's not forward looking. MS Surface is a forward looking project. Windows Phone 7 is not.
Secondly, the Zune HD interface has its roots in Windows Media Center, which predates the PSP by several years.
I forgot about Windows Media Center. Definitely one on me.
Thirdly, you claim they have no innovation, and then you yourself bring up the fact that they had a multitouch concept well before the competition. Interesting.
Microsoft's current product lineup in almost every market is well received by just about everyone, except people interested in mindless "M$" bashing.
MS Surface is not the first to do touch gesture or multi-touch. It is the other aspects of Surface that I find interesting but this is one product (more of a tech demo than real product) out of how many in the last 5 years? Exactly.
I paid very good money to MS for both Office and Windows. Microsoft has received over one thousand of my hard earned dollars in the last 5 years (Xbox, Xbox 360, Vista, Win7, Office 2007). I don't do mindless "M$ bashing" as you put it. Hell, except jokingly I never use M$.
MS's current lineup in most markets outside of Office and Windows and video games (which is arguably a failure from a business standpoint though a success from consumer electronics standpoint) sucks. Sorry but the most visible lineup in the MS product lineup outside of Windows and Office is video games which we've covered as well as phones and portable media players. When you have to reboot your phone OS because its failing that's not success. When you're a very very very distant 3rd place in the portable media player market, that's not success.
I think this is getting beyond the scope of this original thread topic. If you wish to continue the argument I would ask that we split the thread.
I stand by my original argument which was that WP7 can't be automatically inked as a future success simply due to MS's vast resources. I stand by that argument. MS has had a lot of failures and mediocrity in too many markets when they try to branch out.
I did. 
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