[spideymans]

Not a lie. Any modern-day "success" with consumers from Microsoft has been limited to them riding the coattails of the well-established and decades old Xbox and Windows platforms. Every other Microsoft foray into consumer computing since Xbox has largely flopped (Windows Phone, Windows tablets, Zune, smartwatches, wearables, Skype, Bing, Cortana, etc...)

Even with Windows, which is their most successful consumer product, its success can arguably be attributed to the fact that Microsoft essentially has a 100% market dominance on computers sold under $1,000. Would that product be as successful if it faced competent competition? We really can't say for certain.

Office has historically seen consumer success (however I suspect the rise of G Suite has significantly curtailed that), but that's only because Office has been a necessity if you want to interact with business documents (which are typically .docx and MS Office files).

The common theme here is that, with the exception of Xbox, Microsoft's consumer products only seem to see success when consumers have no other options.