Microsoft: "Xbox" is a platform now, not just a console.. Console sales don't matter, Xbox Live activity matters..

As long a Sony, Nintendo, Apple, and Google are continuing to fight for the living room with gaming consoles and streaming boxes, there will continue to be a plug-and-play Xbox solution available for those consumers..

I'm glad someone else sees what's going on.

LMAO @MS they lost the game and here are the excuses.

xbox live vs steam LOL

Except even Scorpio won't have steam, imagine if it did. Gaming heaven would appear and that would be extremely appealing.

They will but it will still be back catalogue base. It wont be current stuff. Sony is basically not going to rush store front competition on pc if it means jeopardising there booming hardware business. They could always mess around with back playstation software catalogue. They dont have OS with Services like MS. They just want you to buy the hardware and software on playstation, that is there number one interest. People should really not put them in the same boat. MS has interest to take care on pc.

Live on PC has already been said to be free.

It's hard to blame them when people will pay $50 a year for a glorified port box. Now it's just a full blown port box.

@pelvist: u are one of those gamers I see. For starters not every game on pc supports mods or are even worth modding so that's a moot point. As for the store I buy games on steam, greenman, goggles, humble, where ever. I don't care. I'm not attached to only giving one company my money. That's weird to me. If you can only buy windows games at the windows store I'm fine with that. For ea games I use origin. Blizzard I use battle net. So for Microsoft using their store doesn't bother me. If all these arbitrary things bother you fair enough that is your opinion. I don't care about any of that. I only care about games and access to games. This means more games. I don't have a pc just to use mods (99% of them don't even matter) or to sign up to steam (they don't even have the best deals) I have a pc to have access to games. Anything that makes my pc better at doing that is good to me.

@LJS9502_basic: They already have came out. Ever heard of FH2, Forza 5 and 6, Halo 5, Halo:MCC, Sunset Overdrive, Dead Rising 3, Titanfall, Rare Replay, Gears Ultimate, Killer Instinct, Quantum Break, Superhot, D4?

To put it more, it's actually good for PC gamers getting more games from Xbox to PC. I been using Windows 10 since launch, Windows 10 store is still crap but games like Quantum Break, it was a test on windows store and when the patches came later, it made the game playable better then it was launch but this is an example I'm saying of.

That said, porting exclusives is for the purpose of selling games they own the publishing for to people who have no interest in buying their system. I doubt Bloodborne is still selling PS4, but it would sell just fine on PC as well. (But hey, a man can dream though)

@NFJSupreme: Then enjoy your games, we will have to wait and see what effect this has on PC gaming but from where I am stood, it doesnt look good.

@pelvist: not really. its not like MS are locking down windows 10 and only allowing games to be played through live (there would be absolute war if they tried). as a PC gamer you can choose to ignore it. sure they will have exclusive games on their store but that is their right...just like EA dont deal with steam and ubisoft have their own service. at the end of the day you can choose to forgo the exclusives and ignore live or you can decide to use live to get the games. its nicer than having to buy a new console to get the games.

competition is good..its what makes the PC an incredible platform. so its going to be interesting to see how MS competes with origin, GOG, uplay and of course, the lovable little service, steam.

i can also see why MS are doing this. the X1 is not the sales success they were hoping for and the cost of games development is too high to leave it to a small userbase. bringing these games to the PC also mitigates the risk without undermining their business.

What doesn't look good about it? Whats going to happen?

Good luck getting PC gamers to pay for Xbox Live

Who says that PC gamers will have to pay for xbox live?

Exactly. MS listened to what people want. More power, games on PC, cross play, cross buy, BC, Best online experience, they checked all the boxes. The only people that see this as negative are cows

Is that confirmed? That is what I was waiting for from MS, link?

if that was just scarcasm then...

we can translate "Console sales don't matter" to:

MS: "we give up, the xbox brand failed so now lets just whore out our games to PC gamers under the Win10 banner to help salvage our wasted investment in consoles"

@casharmy: nah man I was just fooling around lol.

Store Apps are going to need a lot more work before I will see this as a good thing. The way the environment works for them is rough, to say the least. I think they can make a lot of improvement there, that likely they weren't simply because they were overly focused on the XBox.

Until then, if it doesn't go to GWG or Steam, it might as well not exist in my book.

Well said. Well said indeed. With regards to the Windows Store, there is a Windows Anniversary update coming soon that supposed to make the Xbox App more functional with the store.

Give the consumer choice (Windows 10, Xbox or Scorpio) and still make money.

Very smart Microsoft.

Seems to me MS is wanting to go after Steam more than anything, and trying to get people to stay on windows 10 with the windows gaming store in the windows environment. When Steam launched Steam OS, Steam Machines, and Steam on Linux that's when MS stepped in.

Steam OS and Steam Machines was Valves response to the inevitable move that MS is making right now. They knew that MS was going to merge their platforms and they needed for find a way to combat it. Any smart company knows that even though they are number 1 that they can be overthrown at anytime and Valve pre-emptiveness is a sign of a company that is willing to adapt.

From a PC gamer's, who also uses Windows 10, point of view. This could be a good thing as long as

1. Stop gimping PC versions to make the Xbox One appear better than it is
2. Fix the mess that is Windows App Store, release physical copies (I'd need to reinstall a CD dive on my PC!) and/or enable the actual purchasing of games through the Xbox Live App, so as we don't need to go near that travesty of a shop
3. Fix UWP to support PC gaming correctly, i.e. allow full screen, allow sli/crossfire, allow disabling V-Sync (they may have done this) and give us the options we get in every other PC game.
4. Don't even consider, ever, trying to implement a subscription service, GfWL has not been forgotten or forgiven. This more than anything will cause their initiative to fail hard.
5. Don't try an force adverts into everything and everywhere.

Do all of that and we may have a deal.

If they are serious they somehow need to open the xbox systems up to the library of games that PC has access to, until they do that all their unified talk is just hot air PR.

Sale don't matter anymore.

Already covered in a previous reply.

1. Only two games come to mind with regards to this issue. And these two games were after the fact "ports". I don't believe this will be a problem in the future because the games would be design for the two systems
2. Hopefully the Windows 10 Anniversary update will address your issues.
3. This is up to the developer and is the developers responsibilities. Also borderless window is preferred fullscreen type for Windows 10. All of the crying about it affecting performance when the benchmarks I have seen demonstrated that it improves performance on Windows 10.
4. Subscription is going to happen but more towards the discounts and monthly games but not for online gaming and other online features. This is just a speculation on my part.
5. Thats something you can change with the privacy settings in Windows 10.

All of these issues will be addressed over time. I think that its a bit sloppy that these things weren't addressed from the start but I have a sneaking suspicion that whoever was or is in charge was not expecting MS to go full sail in this direction.

I guess nothing matters...

I fear I'm going to buy FH3, Dead Rising 4, Scalebound, Recore, Sea of Thieves, and Halo Wars 2 on the Windows 10 XBox store, and then MS will decide to charge me $60 a year for Live after I have this established library. If they can promise this won't happen, I son't see this as a bad thing. If they do this, it will be game over between me and the XBox brand. I like the idea of playing my console friends, while I'm on PC.

I did notice that during the Gears 4 showing, they kept putting an emphasis on Coop between PC and Console, not Versus MP. I wonder if there will be no versus between the 2 platforms for games like Gears and Halo? WIll Halo Wars 2 not be able to be played against different platforms because 1 has the advantage of M/KB? So many questions about this.

this right here... I buy on uplay, steam, origin, and now i'll be buying on the live store front.

Thats not going to happen in that manner. They would try to entice you with other things like monthly games etc with Gold or they may simply drop the membership all together on all platforms because of the general financial benefit of a purely digital platform outweighs the membership.

@osan0: There has to be competition for it to be a good thing. It will be hard to get a competitive deal on something thats exclusive to Windows Store, and that kind of thing is guaranteed to happen. They do it with XBOX v PlayStation so why wouldnt they do it against the competition on PC?

What Oculus are doing to VR with VR exclusives is nothing compared to the damage MS could do to PC gaming.

I'm all for it and I'm happy my most anticipated game now, Horizon 3, will include PC gamers to play against. More options is always good, and going by some of the comments on this board I think their next step is to make Windows 10 Gaming a more attractive option for PC gamers. I've never tried it but I see people say it sucks compared to Steam, so they should look into that.

@Pedro: If they fix it then great but having been stung by QB, I'm sceptical and will wait and see before buying anything from their store again and I certainly will not be paying them a subscription fee for 'free' games.

My mistake. I thought you were talking quality.

@LJS9502_basic: What a fanboy reply. Anyone that's not blinded by brand loyalty knows those games are quality, even if not all of them are for everyone. I also forgot to mention RotTR.

LOL lighten up. Anyway I'm not sure why you're hyping old games.

Corporate speak saying XO is a financial failure in lieu of the 360 and it's immense popularity, so we're back to needing PC gaming again...and maybe phones too.

Wow. Xbone sales are so bad MS is basically tapping out. Sorry lems :(

hit the nail on the head. I bet nadella was like super pissed at the xb1 team and now told the surface team to replace some of the idiots over there.

As long we keep the xbox ecosystem i will not complain. I not going to play shooters with keyboard and mouse i hate it. Its reason i buy the xbox and will likely buy the Scorpio when its out.

So it's official now? Let the wars start

Killer Instinct and Forza was pretty good. But your skepticism is good. It keeps companies on their toes.

I have been pushing for MS to do this since they revealed XB1 would be using the x86 platform. This is a win-win for everybody. If you want a simple, low cost solution.... get an Xbox. If you want a scalable experience and the best quality.... PC is where it is at. It gives people choice and freedom. You no longer have to suffer 30fps if you don't want to.

@pelvist: but sure all services on the PC have their exclusives. the same complaint could be levelled at valve or EA or ubisoft.

i mean yeah in a perfect world there would be no exclusives. the different services like Origin and steam would compete based on the services they provide rather than the content and you could get your game from anywhere. there would be no xbox or PS or nintendo console...it would just be a vendor neutral game playing box that can use any service.

but turkeys dont vote for christmas. any gaming company (especially a big gaming company with its own platform) is going to use exclusives as a weapon whether they have a console or not.

at the end of the day its better to have the option to be able to play these games on the PC that not having the option.

i do have a few other concerns like

1) UWP needs a lot of work. this seems to be WIP

2) unless MS open source the platform and allow UWP applications to run on non windows OSs its not going to do Linux or mac gaming any favours (so personally im probably going to ignore the xbox store until this happens). its not as pipe dream as it sounds mind..... .Net was open sourced a while back there for example. i mean its very unlikely to happen but not impossible.

3) maintenance of the non UWP platform on windows will be shelved making development of non UWP apps on windows more difficult and limiting over time. sadly if MS decide to go down that route there isnt much that can be done to stop them short of getting off windows entirely.

but there are always concerns on the PC not matter which way you look. they tend to sort themselves out over time.

Desperation move by ms, let's see if it pays off.

@casharmy: Agree. If I had an Xbox One then I might stick with Windows Store for games as now you can go back and forth between the two, but Steam to me is one of the best places anywhere to get games.

I think the whole Windows Game Store and video games on Windows will be another MS trying to buy their way into a market they aren't competitive in. (Nokia with phones, Bing with Search, and now Linkedin with Social Media)

MS needs to innovate instead of imitate.

If only they had sold it to their gamers as a "platform" back in 2013. Oh well, we know the XBox fanbase will roll with any punch and so do they.