not sure if serious...

your TV manufacturer benefits from gaming you can count on that.
There is a proven relation between TV sales, console releases or sport events.

Gaming is one of the selling points Windows has over every other OS in the market.

It's a self contained ecosystem that they control, I don't see what the issue is. Just the same as Steam is Valve's ecosystem, or the Mac appstore on mac is Apple's. The larger PC ecosystem has no owner or controller but there exist many sub ecosystems within it.

MS`s ecosystem on the PC is so much more than the appstore.

- Office
- Skype
- Azure
- SQL Server
- Windows itself
- .NET
- Internet Explorer

All belongs to the ecosystem MS built around the PC.

none of which (exept maybe Azure and .NET but not really relevent to the topic of the thread either) are related to games, and as such are completly irrelivant to the discussion at hand. The topic is not does MS have an ecosystem on PC, it's should PC Gaming in general be considered part of MS's ecosystem.

A growing number of people are playing Personal Computer games through OSX and Linux, which like Windows also run on Personal Computers.  While windows has a stranglehold on marketshare of most PC sales, the PC market is shrinking.  Windows is not a majority of computing any more, Linux (Android, and a bunch of new players Tizen, Sailfish, Firefox OS, and Ubuntu Touch) and IOS dominate the mobile world.  Only windows uses Direct X, everyone uses OpenGL.  Any game developer looking at the changing market place is looking at that incredible shrinking PC market place and making bets on the future.  Look at Valves own internal plans, a linux steambox and eventual expansion via that into mobile as well.

Actually I don't game on windows (112 linux games installed on steam so far on my PC, 0 running on a windows emulator), it really is that simple.  I can get linux preinstalled gaming rigs from alienware and many major vendors.  I can also buy a decent gaming Mac.

PC does not equal Windows.  It is a concept coined by IBM way back in the DOS days (before that they were microcomputers and ran minimal OSs that were basically a program it yourself affair).  Windows is Windows, PC is something larger, and it includes other things.

M$ has adopted the Apple format with windows 8. They were trying to openly adopt it into the XBone area and ran into the gaming nerd wall that is very vocal. OF course windows 8 doesn't require you to purchase your games through their app hub, but most people who have been doing it on their ipads/kindles for the last few years will go that way. So, they don't really publish much besides their core office products, but if you use windows 8, they make money through their app store. I think their intent was to have XBone also run through a version of the app store, so they could literally say that they have a 100,000 plus apps available on XBone. If not their 100,000+ library, they could definitely have the app publishers re certify many apps for the XBone.

Yes windows has what I refered to as a strangle hold on a shrinking PC market. I don't contest that.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/10/us-technology-computers-idUSBRE9690ZA20130710

http://www.zdnet.com/android-rockets-and-ios-gains-while-windows-dips-7000017208/

Valve and Nvidia did a joint presentation at a developers conference about the linux port and stated one of the main reasons (there were many, not just Gabes bluster) was the transition to mobile platforms.  Frankly MS has virtually no presence there.  IOS will ship as many units this year than all PCs, Android and the other linuxes will ship double that.  Game makers want to reach users, the user base is shifting.

History lessons are good, there have been many platform shifts over time, and we are in the middle of another one. When you look at the power of near future devices like Nvidia's Denver/maxwell SoC as well as other players,  the shift might be faster than you think.

Remember the speed whith which the world switched from text to GUI after Win 3.1?  Or the Death of CPM at the hands of DOS?

Right, do you know if they licensed it or stole/cloned it?  Sony could license DirectX from MS, while MS license blu-ray from Sony. 

I'm getting conflicting reports.  I would think it would have to be licened.

There were similar reports about the WiiU using DirectX 10, but I think that was just for spec compairsons.

That's a terrible analogy.