They are in a strange position, but I don't think they are going the way of Sega right now. The market is very different now than it was at that time.

We are applying the status quo as the only possible way to run game consoles when that doesn't have to be true. AMD and Nvidia compete just fine on the merits of their hardware alone without exclusive games.

Even Sony is realizing that they can't only publish on their own consoles. What Microsoft is doing now with Playstation they have already been doing for quite some time already with their games launching day one also on PC.

We also can't ignore that the need for the console is changing with things like xcloud (which runs Xbox hardware on blades, so it gives them incentive to continue making xbox hardware that can both ship as a home console and in blades). xCloud you can even use without any extra hardware (other than a controller) right on your TV with Samsung.

Obviously xCloud isn't going to be the solution for everyone. But we can't apply how things previously worked to how Xbox is trying to just have a different business model. And it isn't anything new with the ABK acquisition. It is continuing what they have already been doing.

Yeah, however eventually XBox hardware will be a revamped version of Windows Media Center, and that will be as welcomed as XBox ONE original design as multimedia box was.

By the way, Dave Cuttler at the end of his interview on Dave's Garage mentions Microsoft is running XBoxes on Azure with Linux for Microsoft's AI purposes, that is how much they care about XBox hardware and cloud gaming.

> however eventually XBox hardware will be a revamped version of Windows Media Center, and that will be as welcomed as XBox ONE original design as multimedia box was.

I don't see any indication that they are going down that path. The decisions that made the Xbox One a media center instead of a focus on gaming was made by leaders that are not there. Phil Spensor came in to fix that problem. Nothing they have done recent seems to be pointing in this direction except for doom and gloom speculation about Xbox.

> By the way, Dave Cuttler at the end of his interview on Dave's Garage mentions Microsoft is running XBoxes on Azure with Linux for Microsoft's AI purposes, that is how much they care about XBox hardware and cloud gaming.

I will have to look this up but that doesn't sound like a bad thing? Hardware having multiple purposes just incentivizes the creation of the hardware in the first place. We see this with how Apple is operating right now.

The rumors is that is going to be Windows based, and have all kind of stores in it, XBox, Steam, Epic, whatever.

Basically PC in a box, in kiosk mode.

It is a bad thing, because those boxes are surely not improving the XBox Cloud streaming experience, which is quite famous for not being that great, with long waiting queues.