From a platform perspective, Microsoft's Xbox has been playing third fiddle to Nintendo and Sony for nearly a decade now. They are likely to phase out the hardware division.
Windows, on the other hand, is a very strong platform, but Valve has been chipping away at it recently by supporting efforts like Proton to play Windows games natively on Linux. Shipping a game on PC is synonymous with shipping on Windows, Mac is an afterthought, and Linux is a pipedream. Microsoft doesn't directly profit off gaming on Windows by charging a platform fee at the moment, but they have tried in the past and could in the future at the drop of a hat.
Windows's hold on gamers at this point is less about playing the games themselves and more about secondary applications, like Discord, having subpar Linux support.
On the publishing side of things, Microsoft just recently became the third largest gaming publisher in the world by buying the fourth largest gaming publisher in the world. Microsoft owns World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Call of Duty, and (for a while now) Minecraft. They own an absurdly large portion of the gaming market despite creating not a single successful franchise in-house.
Windows, on the other hand, is a very strong platform, but Valve has been chipping away at it recently by supporting efforts like Proton to play Windows games natively on Linux. Shipping a game on PC is synonymous with shipping on Windows, Mac is an afterthought, and Linux is a pipedream. Microsoft doesn't directly profit off gaming on Windows by charging a platform fee at the moment, but they have tried in the past and could in the future at the drop of a hat.
Windows's hold on gamers at this point is less about playing the games themselves and more about secondary applications, like Discord, having subpar Linux support.
On the publishing side of things, Microsoft just recently became the third largest gaming publisher in the world by buying the fourth largest gaming publisher in the world. Microsoft owns World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Call of Duty, and (for a while now) Minecraft. They own an absurdly large portion of the gaming market despite creating not a single successful franchise in-house.