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Comment by hamdingers | Hacker News Reader

Author is using Microsoft and Windows interchangeably, this post is only about Windows.

Gaming is a bigger business for Microsoft than Windows and that can only ever be consumer focused. There's no mention of Xbox, nor an awareness that Microsoft published games are playable on the Steam Machine.

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I don't think gaming is really bigger than windows. Gaming revenue is 23B in 2025 and Windows+Devices is 17B, so just in this metrics they're already close; but you have to factor how much of their 120B Office+Productivity line on their annual report only exist because people use Windows. If you take LinkedIn and Dynamics out of the equation you get approximately 100B in Office, Teams, SharePoint and stuff like that and people only use these product at scale because they're on Windows.

Microsoft is pushing the web-based O365 really hard tho.

And I use Office 365 from a browser in Debian.

Yes, the article should really be titled "Is Windows just tech debt to Microsoft?" and could have been published five or six years ago.

It would be a short article.

“Yah”

Microsoft has definitely angered consumers in the gaming space. Look what they've done to Minecraft, or the formerly beloved studios they bought out. The Game Pass price hike was not well-received.

Yeah there's lots of complaining but until they move to linux, stop buying their games and cancel their subscriptions nothing will change in the enshittification path.

Why do you think the Steam Deck and Steam Machine are getting so much attention?

Gaming is a massive loss leader, MS will never make back the money they invested to buy other publishers. The subscription model will fail aswell, prices will have to go up more, to try and actually make some profit.

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