Yeah, fair point. I was asking because Steam Deck is always the best seller on Steam every week, but Steam goes by revenue, so it would make sense that the Deck is always the best seller just because of how much more expensive it is over games.

I didn't miss it at all. I simply did not mention it because it doesn't make a difference to my point; whether someone is driven to buy a game because it is singleplayer or multiplayer it makes no difference; at the end of the day, something about said game drew them in. In fact, I would argue that the relative lack of multiplayer exclusives from Sony should have given Xbox an advantage with that demographic, but so far that theorical advantage hasn't translated into hardware sales; why? because people are content playing them on PC.

Not putting their games on PC would be a short sighted move at this point when Sony has such a dominant position in the console market. One could could argue that they should make their games exclusive to the MS Store on PC but obviously reaching a large audience (which could potentially opt for a Game Pass sub) was more important for them.

Selling their services and software matter the most to them, so I don't see how returning their first-party games to true exclusives or timed console exclusives would benefit them.
The Xbox Series is on the path to outsell the Xbox One by a notable margin, but I don't see it touching the Xbox 360.
Xbox is in a better spot right now than it was in 2013-2016.

The main reason Microsoft's games seem to generally sell better on PC is obviously the day and date factor. PC pretty much has Xbox built into it, which for a lot of people kills Xbox consoles. This was always going to hurt Xbox consoles' potential, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's a mistake from Microsoft, it's only harmful for their console business which is just a segment of their game division.

Steam "concurrent players" isn't entirely representitive of success or sales. In addition to Steam, Sony sell their games on Epic Games Store which as far as I'm aware Microsoft do not. Now MS have their own launcher but we don't know how their games sell there compared to Sony's on EGS. IIRC, GoW sold an estimated 3-4 million in about 10 months on PC, it took Sea of Thieves (Microsoft's biggest game on PC?) years to reach 5 million on Steam. The majority of Sony's games are "one and done", so they don't really have the player retention quality of games like Sea of Thieves, Forza Horizon, Halo, or now Sony's own Destiny 2. Concurrent players can be a misleading metric depending on the nature of the argument you're making.

Anyway... I don't think Microsoft "going broader" is a mistake. They're just trying to adapt to their own strengths and weaknesses. I think it's too late and too risky to start prioritizing consoles again after years of integrating Xbox into the PC platform.

You are correct, but concurrent players number is not the only thing we have. If you look at the top 100 best selling chart today, you will find SoT there with 26 consecutive weeks, FH5 with 88, and Flight Simulator with 22 (and there are no games from Sony currently).

And about EGS sales, well, I guess there is no way for us to really know, but I'm willing to bet that sales over there are a fraction of Steam's, for any game.

And I'm not saying that Microsoft should drop PC, it is too late for that now; but I do think that it was a mistake in hindsight (from a business perspective).

1) Because of Day and Date releases. It makes sense on that alone, that a bigger portion of the pie, would go to pc from that alone.
While on Sony side, its often a year or two down the line, meaning people that own both a PS4/5 and a PC, would play it on the console instead.
So sony is focusing only on PC purist that swear off consoles, that then get a chance years lateron. MS sees PC gaming, as equal to its console, and dont care if they lose console hardware sales to pc users, that otherwise might have been tempted to buy a console.

2) " Is it the genre?"  Yes, its also these service games, that are low on story telling, high on repeatable gameplay loops.... that are often multiplayer focused.
MS is deliberately going for it. Ofc this results in longer legs (ei. people playing games longer).  However I'd argue that ultimately that doesnt matter, what matters is just how much profit they make off doing it.  Benji pic at top, seem to suggest that MS does better at that as well on steam. However again, this is probably at the cost of console software sales. So in the end, which of the two stategies is best for profits.... is anyones guess.

3) "could it be that the 3rd person action adventure fanbase has already gathered around the Playstation hardware? or could it be that PC players who are interested in Sony games at launch (or close to it) simply don´t have any other option than to buy Playstation hardware to play them?" 

This is my take. Sony are "we focus on our console guys first, they are our priority".

4) "I strongly believe that this last option is the safest bet; that is why I truly believe that Microsoft made a huge mistake when they decided to release their games on PC on the same day as Xbox. I think they still would have been able to reap the benefits of PC gaming by releasing their games at least 6 month to one year later there, without sacrificing their Xbox hardware. What do you guys think?"


In terms of hardware sales (console) and software sales on console.... yes, there is undoubtably a cost (downside) to going day and date on pc.
However, maybe the slightly higher PC sales, make up for that loss? Whos to say? Its hard to go "this is costing them x,y,z" when you dont have any actual numbers from Xbox at all.

I feel like you're comparing quick release Xbox GaaS games to late release Sony SP games.

Yed but they sold like 3 headsets

MS stated themselves that they were going for a PC resurgence with their software efforts, this was back in the late days of Xbox 360/early Xbox One. Add to that the fact that they have focused heavily on multiplayer and online components from the beginning, a space which famously has a lot fiercer competition. Meanwhile, Sony has stuck with SP games to a larger degree, and managed to have their in-house studios produce some amazing titles, all the while maintaining great relations with 3rd parties as well to get multi-platform games on the regular.

MS' more recent push for cloud gaming and Live Service aspects are also key; I don't think they ever intended to sell more, or even nearly as many, consoles. They want as many as possible paying monthly plans, the very same strategy adopted by most major software and entertainment companies today. Microsoft are, and always have been, a software company first and foremost, it's even embedded in their name for clarity's sake. Xbox sales are hurting for sure, but they're merely leaning on their historical strength as a software giant, by focusing hard on software (kind of a pun - "Gianthard"). 

I never had much interest in the Xbox brand or their exclusive IPs (most of which are also on PC), but I think their shift in focus is smart in the long run. What I don't appreciate nearly as much, is their spending spree and insistence on buying huge studios and publishers, but that's a somewhat different topic.