Thinking about it, is that really what's best for MS? If they make games that you can play on any OS and any device, that turns MS into a games publisher; an EA or Ubisoft. That in turn loses those games as a sales driver for MS OSes and devices. Basically giving away one of their best drivers for selling their wider ecosystem.
Markets change, goals change. I'm not sure if that's an acknowledgement of defeat, or they are looking to gain cost advantage in an area that fits their organization better. While I agree there is some difference between the population of a platform and a subscriber base. Companies looking to get onto the platform will still be looking at the size of that number. If the number expands greatly by decoupling hardware from the software, then you've effectively made a new platform. One that isn't bound by selling hardware. But just bound by how many people will subscribe. That doesn't make Xbox irrelevant though, it just a second platform that MS now owns in addition to its console platform.
Sure. But MS, a maker of the world's numero uno operating system, to stop trying to promote their OS through exclusives, would be a shift away from what they were trying to do before, which can be phrased as a defeat of that original plan. Not trying to make MS out to be losers or anything, but I'm hesitant to accept that MS will go platform independent with their services while they are a still a decent USP. Xbox Play Anywhere is all about growing the ecosystem, and it does a good job of selling that IMO. Leave Xbox Streaming to cater for those who aren't willing to buy into the Windows universe, hook them with your exclusives, and sell them an OS that improves on the experience of playing those exclusives. Get a bit of money from those who won't budge, like iOS users who'll never buy a Windows tablet, while coaxing over those who can be coaxed like console gamers.
The extrapolated end to that though, to me, seems like the shrinking of Windows until perhaps one day MS doesn't even do Windows, potentially. Run your MS Office and Xbox games on your Mac or Google Something. That'd probably result in more money for MS than selling the OS, but there's no denying the change would be absolutely epic in the computing space. I'm not sure MS are willing to enter that possibility yet, and so I don't know that they can be looking at XB as being platform agnostic. Gaming is still their best driver for consumer PCs.
If this is defeat, then, from what I understand you may be correct in your statement. Without embellishing details, or being hyperbolic, as I understand it the Windows team is no longer structured the same way it used to be, since about 12+ months ago. I can't elaborate on details because it could be wrong, and thus I'm peddling misinformation, but I don't think the product team for windows exists the same way it used to.
I think where MS is headed is that they will provide platforms as a baseline to support the real money makers, in this case, the content/application/services that people actually want to pay for.
