Microsoft continues to struggle on first attempts.

Personal audio devices, check. Home entertainment consoles, check. MMOs, check. Microsoft does not have a great record for first-round knockouts. And while Zune, Xbox and Marvel Universe may have all stumbled coming out of the blocks, two of the three have come back strong. Microsoft hopes to do the same with Marvel (or at least some MMO) someday, and they do have a decent record as a comeback kid (see the XBox 360 for exhibit A). According to Shane Kim in a recent interview with Edge-Online, Microsoft has had it's issues, but they are willing to make the hard decisions so they can live to fight another day:

"...I think we've made the right decision not to proceed with those things like the Marvel MMO. And that's tough, both for customers looking forward to it and teams working on it. That said, we haven't been successful, but there's nothing to say those titles can't be successful on 360."

MMOs cost a lot of money to create, and then continue sucking money to operate. A game developer/publisher like Microsoft has struggled with the MMO space for quite a while (see Asherons Call 2 as exhibit B). Maybe they can figure this out, or maybe it will vex them. View the rest of the interview with Mr. Kim at Edge-Online, and then let me know if you think they can be the Cinderella story and come back like they have with other consumer products.