First off this is not a joke and it is a very realistic possibility that the Xbox One could be the last of the Microsoft gaming consoles.  Many reliable sources, including Bloomberg, are reporting that Stephen Elop is a front runner for the CEO position at Microsoft. Before running Nokia into the ground Elop was an executive at Microsoft and the Microsoft Board of Directors reportedly has him on their short list.

Top ranking executives and board members at Microsoft, including co-founder Paul Allen, believe that Microsoft is in need of a major overhaul which will include shuttering divisions that aren’t profit centers and aren’t parts of their core business. When Microsoft was in it’s heyday they were the largest software company in the world which included DOS, Windows, Office and other popular Microsoft programs.

Bloomberg reported Friday that Elop “would consider breaking with decades of tradition by focusing the company’s strategy around making the popular Office software programs like Word, Excel and PowerPoint available on a broad variety of smartphones and tablets, including those made by Apple Inc. and Google Inc., said three people with knowledge of his thinking.”

The thought is that they would push Office more as a stand alone product than as a driver to increase sales of devices running the Windows operating system.

BGR reports that Elop would also consider killing off money losing operations such as Bing and the Xbox gaming console. Earlier this week Normura analyst Rick Sherlund published a research note that detailed what many feel is the best plan for Microsoft to return their stock to over $50.00 a share. The first two things in that report were to shutter Xbox and Bing.

There aren’t many numbers available for Xbox. Microsoft could be intentionally keeping those close to the vest with the upcoming release of Xbox One on November 22nd. On the other hand they are freely talking about Bing as losing an estimated $17 billion since it’s launch in trying to compete with Google. At best they’ve garnered 20% of the search engine market.

“We estimate Microsoft has lost $17 billion with Bing over the past 10 years,” Sherlund explains. “It may be concerning to watch Google give away its Android operating system… but this is a superior business model… it is not important that Microsoft receive $5 or $10 billion for Bing … but rather that it eliminate about 20 cents per share in annual losses.”

According to the same research note, Microsoft makes more money from patent and royalty deals with Android than Skype, Bing, Windows Phone and Xbox combined. According to this report the company made $2 billion dollars last year alone, with those royalties.

The advice to drop underperforming business units is actually being given to all of the potential candidates for Microsoft’s CEO position so even if the company goes with someone else Bing and Xbox could still be in trouble.