Microsoft is clearly blowing its load on Game Pass and xCloud streaming, those services look sweet, and since they're the ones declaring that they don't want to be held back by hardware specs and hard limitations of a console, might as well have a PC, which I already do. Win-win.
I am in the same situation pretty much, I have instead invested more money into my PC and dont plan on getting a Series X or a PS5 (at least not straight away). I havent actually played any games on my consoles in a very long time and leaned more into PC gaming over last 12-18 months and I think ive actually played MORE Microsoft developed/published games by getting Game Pass for PC and cancelling Xbox Live (which is rumoured to have now been discontinued anyway or merged with Game Pass) on my console and it has saved me money even though I actually now have more games at my disposal.
However overall this is Microsofts marketing plan, that you wont actually need to own an Xbox console (something which they will likely lose money on selling) to play the games. So long as you are paying for Game Pass etc then they are getting your money anyway and by playing on PC you are still using a platform they own. Also by opening up their games to other services like Steam they are making their games more accessible than ever &
seems to be paying off.
Most profit is made selling software not hardware where they often
sell at a loss so as a business move its one that should net them a tidy profit. Smart move would be to significantly undercut the PS5 console cost knowing that a lot of people will buy the services/games on PC (
even streaming on Android devices &
maybe iOS in future) instead of buying a Series X and overall they wont sell as many console units but wont lose as much money overall via console manufacturing costs. They know in most peoples opinion Sony has the stronger exclusives lineup but by making their titles much more accessible they can get a larger market share over multiple platforms & by increasing the value of Game Pass and potentially dropping separate Xbox Live charge they will entice even more gamers to it.
Phil Spencer
"I don't want to get into all the numbers, but in aggregate you should think about the hardware part of the console business is not the money-making part of the business. The money-making part is in selling games."
The people who want the console will buy it anyway and those that want to play the games but not to fork out for a console can still buy the games/services and play them elsewhere so best of both worlds.