Fam, I know you're disappointed at my arguments without citations but relax a little, drink some water or any other cold beverage you might enjoy and listen:
I don't think xbox series s and x wouldn't sell more if they had a "windows 11 mode". Quite the contrary, they would sell like hotcakes because people would have prebuilts for waaaay cheaper (ofc, ignoring the whole market of people who like to upgrade their PC and wouldn't buy a prebuilt that only takes storage upgrades).
But the thing I'm trying to say is:
why microsoft would even do that? I don't know if they're still operating on losses when it comes to manufacturing the series s and x and selling them for that price point but assuming they aren't, their profit must still be really low.
So okay, they would've gathered a way bigger install base, but
would that necessarily translate into a higher number of sales on microsoft's game store or a higher ammount of gamepass subscriptions?
Because like I said, the pc games market is dominated by steam and EGS and people HATE when they have to get their games outside steam.
And when I say
PEOPLE I don't necessarily mean myself, I mean ANYONE who games on PC. If you ask ANYONE in any forum, comments section, etc... if they'd rather have their games on steam or have to use another launcher, I can guarantee you, it would be a 9/10 people being against downloading another launcher or buying games on another storefront.
I believe someone else on famiboards said it before, I think it was
@oldpuck, I'm not sure:
Something along the line of: Xbox exists today as a mean of getting people into microsoft's platform to guarantee that microsoft gets the profit from every game sale instead of say, valve and to serve as a platform for gamepass.
If you introduce a "windows 11 mode" into this equation, you remove the restraints of the platform, allowing people to buy from steam/egs generating MS nearly zero profit (outside of maybe hardware sales - but again, assuming they can even mass manufacture them without losses)
And finally: you can say "CITATION NEEDED, CITATION NEEDED" all you want, but if that's the case, I'm also eager to say:
do you have any research that proves there's any meaningful interest from pc gamers on microsoft's store? as in, marketshare-wise or just considerable growth in any shape or form? COMPARED to the steam/EGS competition
And I know the point here is gamepass, but then again:
do you have any kind of research that points to microsoft possibly being able to increase the amount of gamepass subscriptions by adding the option to run windows on xbox machines?
Also, your whole justification for why the xbox doesn't compete with PC is flawed:
When people consider buying a console, they look first and foremost at the GAMES that platform offers. If, at the moment of purchase, they realize that the competing platform has most if not all the games they want to play and is similarly priced, they might pick that one instead. But WHAT makes they pick that one instead? exclusives. Every. Goddamn. Time. It's either exclusives or price.
Listen, you might say it's my opinion all you want, but that opinion of mine is based on history.
Every single time it has been like this with consoles.
Platform has no games? flop. WHY THEN is PS5 selling well?* Multiple reasons:
1 - PS4 users (117mi+) who migrated to PS5 because sony's platform is where their achievements are, their digital games, friends list...
2 - Timed exclusives. Might be timed, but it's still an exclusive regardless. Some people are content creators, reviewers, etc... and they need to play the game on release. Sometimes they are just impatient.
3 - Actual exclusives - from both PS4 and PS5 that aren't on PC and have no indication that they're getting ported whatsoever.
4 - Pricing scheme: Why would I waste 300$ on a Series S when I can get a PS5 that's close in performance to a series X for just ~100$ more? Both the series S and ps5 digital don't play physical media but now you can just pay a bit less for a PS5 slim digital and upgrade adding a drive later.
Also, the ps5 comes with 1tb by default. Only the 350$ Series S comes with 1tb and you KNOW people will prefer a console with more storage considering the size games are now. Also, I'm assuming most people would rather buy something new, not pre-owned or refurbished. In that case, a brand-new ps5 slim is still 50$ less than the series X. And microsoft to this day has no cheaper digital option for the series x (with the same performance of series x, not the s).
*note that when I said people are turning away from it, I said that many people I know IRL, many people I interact with only online, even people I haven't even talked to (online), said that they lost interest on ps5 because most of it's games are on PC.
