????然而，鮑爾默并不是完全只專注于企業市場。就任首席執行官后，他的首批重要決策之一，是微軟是否應當借Xbox進入游戲市場。蓋茨完全贊同，但鮑爾默表示他對這個產品的批準是他作為新任總裁樹立威信的轉折點。

????使用Xbox進軍顧客的客廳？鮑爾默表示，那“是我的決定，我的責任。我相信責任。我已經入戲了，我有責任感。我會讓它成功的——我并不是一定得這么做——但這一路確實并不平坦。而我要保持責任感、保持耐心、堅信我們做出的決定，這一點很重要。”

????微軟娛樂和設備部門的前主管、自2001年Xbox發布首款產品便擔任Xbox部門主管的羅比?巴赫回憶道，在讓整個團隊開始行動前，鮑爾默花了六個月時間進行徹底的業務回顧，來確定該領域對微軟來說是否真的存在商機。他花了一個月時間來學習這個新角色。

????巴赫說：“他愿意闖進一個微軟從未進入過的領域，看看商業模式。然后說，我們得嘗試一下。”

????2000年起，微軟投入了數十億美元的資金，打算打入消費者的客廳，然后逐漸占領它。充當先鋒的是一臺Xbox，使用的是全新編寫的非Windows型操作系統。但最后它卻成為了市場領先的產品，也打開了微軟進軍聯網電視生態系統的通道。即便當這款產品遭遇障礙——與索尼（Sony）展開價格戰，導致微軟的第一代產品遭遇損失；面對“三紅死機”問題，微軟的第二代產品在2008年虧損達10億美元——鮑爾默依然支持團隊所走的每一步，巴赫說。

????曾擔任微軟戰略專家的技術投資家查爾斯?菲茨杰拉德表示：“Xbox曾經虧損了數十億美元，固然令人惋惜。不過如果大家把它看作防止索尼或其他游戲主機廠商侵蝕微軟在Windows個人電腦上的利益的保護手段的話，它與Windows那時獲得的數千億利潤相比，不過是九牛一毛。”??

????Ballmer wasn't all business-focused, however. One of his first major decisions as CEO was whether or not Microsoft should enter the gaming market with the Xbox. Gates was all-in, but Ballmer says he considered his approval of the device to be a turning point for him to establish himself as the new chief executive.

????Getting into the living room with the Xbox? That "was my decision, my accountability," Ballmer says. "I believe in accountability. I'm in. I'm accountable. I'll make this work -- not that I had to drive it -- but we had some bumps on the road. And it was important that I stay accountable, stay patient, and stay behind the decision that we made."

????Robbie Bach, the former head of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division and head of Xbox from the launch of the original Xbox in 2001, remembers Ballmer spending six months conducting a thorough business review to determine whether there was actually opportunity for Microsoft before giving the team the go-ahead. He made the call one month into his new role.

????"He was willing to step out into a space that Microsoft had never been in, look at a business model, and say, This is something we need to try," Bach says.

????Since 2000, Microsoft has spent billions to expand in a market that has evolved to encompass the entire living room. What began as a device that used a non-Windows operating system written almost entirely from scratch has become a dominant console and entry point in the growing connected television ecosystem. Even when the console hit speed bumps -- competing on price against Sony (SNE), Microsoft took a loss on the first generation; faced with "red ring of death" console glitches, Microsoft took a billion-dollar write-off in 2008 against the second generation -- Ballmer backed the team every step of the way, Bach says.

????"It is easy to bemoan billions spent on Xbox," says Charles Fitzgerald, a former Microsoft strategist and current tech investor, "but when you look at it as a hedge to keep Sony or any game console from undermining the Windows PC, it is chump change compared to the hundreds of billions in Windows profits banked during that time."??