Where is Microsoft headed from here on out?

[Mr Puggsly]

Pemalite said:

S.T.A.G.E. said:
Xbox Live on consoles will be used to foot the bill of running Windows 10.

And once Microsoft stops giving me free Xbox 360 games every month... I'll likely cancel my Xbox live anyway. - You don't get to own the Xbox One games, so I don't really care about them... And I honestly haven't had a game worth playing on Xbox Live since early this year with Halo Wars 2 (Which has a dead multiplayer anyway in Oceania.)
My Xbox One X has essentially been sitting there gathering dust. (Literally. It has a layer of dust on it.)

Mr Puggsly said:

I see Windows Store and Steam competition kinda like Hulu and Netlflix. You can enjoy both on the same device but they offer different content to justify using both. The popular titles on Windows Store obviously is not the content on Steam. MS is adding lots of content exclusive to their store even while sharing some with Steam.

Hulu and Netflix ARE competitors though. They do obviously have some overlap in users, but they are certainly competitors.

I will never buy a game on Windows Store. It's that simple. It's Steam or nothing.
Microsoft released Halo Wars on Steam, great. I intend to grab a copy during this years sale. Microsoft kept Halo Wars 2 Windows Store exclusive, great. I have forever avoided that purchase, Microsoft lost a sale.

Microsoft has also not added more keys for Fable 3 on Steam, so there is more sales lost there.

Mr Puggsly said:

I think MS has a following among PC gamers but their support has just been kinda crappy. Sharing games between Xbox and Windows is great and their store is clearly more active from it. I assume that was the goal.

Their support sill is crappy.

The AAA games on the Windows Store have non-existent player populations, which means if you buy a game for the multiplayer component it is essentially useless.
It's why Microsoft gave away refunds for Gears of War 4 on the Windows Store.

Cross buy and cross play *is* great though and should be more common, but I wish cross-buy wasn't restricted to digital purchases.

I imagine there is an incentive to keep giving out 360 for years because BC keeps them active. X1X also make them near 4K, maybe 8K in the 9th gen! But I'm wondering if at some point they stop giving 360 games because they run out of content to give away. Then they give OG Xbox games?

My consoles literally have dust on them as well, even the active ones. It doesn't require much to see it on black.

 

You obviously get the argument I'm making. Netflix and Hulu will have more customer overlap than subscription TV providers and phone carriers. Steam and Windows Store have something similar, users can use both on their same device.

I get you refuse to use Windows Store, but I didn't ask. Just pointing out people will use both and obviously not everybody.

Ideally MS would just remaster the Fable trilogy port it to X1 and PC. The old version on Steam is GFW and that's a mess.

 

If online components are empty, I don't think that means MS support sucks per se.

However, some of them have cross play with Xbox One. Gears 4 for example lets PC and Xbox players connect for co op modes. Forza 7 and KI are other titles with cross play.

So you can nit pick but I like what MS is doing and its improving. I would simply hope they continue this trend.