MS doesn't think of success and failure the way you and I do.
Much like Saudi Arabia, they get infinite spigots of money from their main money makers. Windows, Office, Azure. Since over 95% of the world is forced to use Windows and Office whether they like it or not, MS is guaranteed these revenue streams in perpetuity. So much like the Saudis and their oil money, MS doesn't care about money and money is not their primary goal nor measure of success.
Instead, MS measures success by which new markets they can enter and dominate. On a fundamental level, they are a monopolist. Their entire thinking is based on monopoly, not competition. They hate competition. Competition means fair play and that makes MS angry. They only like to crush competition, not play some kind of fair rules-based sport with them.
So MS enters markets they think they can crush all existing market competitors and control utterly. They will throw any and all resources at this market, until the moment they realize that they are unable to control and dominate. Then they will abruptly withdraw, regardless of previous time and money spent. The best example of this is mobile phones. Over a more than decade period, they threw unlimited money at mobile phones (including multiple acquisitions like Danger and Nokia's phone division) to try and push all competitors out. They were actually an early market entrant in the nascent smartphones business. Unfortunately for them, Apple invented the iPhone and revolutionized smartphones overnight. They were slow to react to Apple (
Steve Ballmer famously laughed at the iPhone) and Google were much quicker to acquire Android. MS was slow, produced a series of poor quality products in the Windows Mobile and then Windows Phone llines, spent a ton of money, and got nowhere. The moment Satya Nadella took over as CEO, he put the Windows Phone division to the axe.
Nadella also wanted to axe Xbox, another of Bill Gates' and Ballmer's pet projects, but was convinced to stay his hand. Now it's nearly a decade into Nadella's reign as CEO and MS once again was slow, produced a series of poor quality products in Xbox One and Xbox Series S/X, and now they are at the final spending lots of money phase with this $70 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Make no mistake about it, MS is once again near the end of their monopolist's playbook here. If they are unable to push back against Sony after they have finished this acquisition and denied Call of Duty to PS, it's probably going to be the end. Regardless of previous time in market and money spent, they will drop the guillotine on Xbox if their final gambit to destroy Sony fails. This is how MS works and how they think.