I think most of the gaming world right now is going, "Why?"

What point are we missing? Windows has always dominated the OS market. Are we meant to congratulate them for finding a new way to maintain the status quo?

I don't know how much it'll change the desktop experience moving forward, but since it's Windows it will likely still be riddled with issues and a bunch of unwanted nonsense.

The console will simply be a console with access to Steam. That's great for a lot of gamers but that won't suddenly revolutionise the market.

If anything the next consoles are already in danger of falling into the niche gaming product category along with other OEM devices, since we don't know what the margins will be and how aggressively they can price it.

Steam has absolutely been bizarre.

It's basically taking over... By simply doing nothing.
No big giant advertising campaigns, no big social media pushes, no big giant gaming convention presence, no "directs" and no undercutting the competition like Epic... They just win by releasing solid products/services and literally doing nothing.

...And by doing nothing they haven't had any drama or politics surrounding Valve to the same extent as the console manufacturers.

What OS do you use? apple? Linux? etc?

ANyways thats the point in this new OS. TO make it gaming First.

This. In the end Steam and VAlve is going to be the winner.

Gotta admit, for a while there I kinda expected that they'd give up on console hardware altogether after the Xbox Series crashed and burned. Glad to see they are sticking around though, as consumer choice beats monopolies any day.

Curious to see what form the next Xbox console will take. A high end enthusiast device? A cheap entry level console? Both? Gonna be interesting to see.

Xbox 360 came very close to PS3 numbers, there was only a couple million between them in the end, practically a tie.

Not going to say that I know if they'll accomplish that goal, although I think they've learned a few lessons along the way from the other areas they've botched and they're trying not to repeat them. But I think what they've been doing is geared toward that goal, and they are in quite unique position to achieve it before anyone else - they have experience in gaming industry with lot of AAA dev studios, Gamepass is first truly successful large scale "all you can eat" gaming subscription service that resembles video on demand subscription services, and their computing infrastructure has largest worldwide coverage (quite a bit above both Google and Amazon).

So yeah, I can see them succeeding in becoming Netflix for games in the future...how far away that future is, and will they manage to cross successfully this transitional period is anyone's guess.

But it is the point, zero. Just look at what you said not too long afterwards:

You say that Steam is going to be the winner which is what I've said as well. In the first post above you also said that nobody is going to beat Nintendo, so that's already two of Microsoft's competitors we agree on. You probably don't think that Sony will go down either, so you'll inevitably arrive at the same conclusion as these Nintendo fans you complained about have arrived at.

This irrationality is the result of what weed does to you.

Is there proof that Game Pass is successful? Between Microsoft selling subscriptions at a very low price early on and the current situation where Microsoft has to pay off publisher to put games on the service, it's hard to imagine that this is a self-sustaining business already. There's also an industry-wide reluctance to launch games day and date on Game Pass and as long as it remains it that way, most of the latest and greatest games will arrive on Game Pass late, if at all.

Netflix produces exclusive shows and movies for their service, but Microsoft has no intention to do the same for theirs. If we looked at a to-do-list that Microsoft has to fulfill, we could likely check a few of the supplemental points like you've done already in your post. But the essential points - and they all revolve around the content that is available on the service - aren't in good shape.

Honestly, I doubt Gamepass is self-sustaining business right now. On the other hand, if you look at it as a long term investment, I find it to be doing what it was meant to do - get people accustomed to paying subscription for open buffet approach to gaming as an alternative to classic model. Whether that's on dedicated hardware, non-dedicated hardware or via streaming, it's a service they want to provide for all interested, and be first and largest at that. Will they succeed? I have no idea, doubt anyone does.

I don't expect this type of service to replace classic model (that's possibility for the far future, and even then only to a certain degree), but it's an alternative that will, from my POV, be increasingly more interesting to more people as the time goes on.

Can't forget that:

Gold used to be $75 AUD per year.
Gamepass Core is $90 AUD. per year.
Gamepass Ultimate is 22.95 per month/68.95 3 months ($275)

I just want to play games online, so I have no use for Gamepass... So after 20 or something years of paying for Gold, Microsoft actually lost my subscription entirely... But I get to keep the hundreds of games I scored from Games with Gold forever, so it was definitely worth it.

Gamepass Ultimate is the price of an over-priced mid-range GPU every 2 years.