[OgsyedIE]

To be fair, the fundamentals that pre-2019 Xbox (and all other consumer gaming) relies on were already slowly going away and have recently been confirmed to have an extremely tiny chance of recovery, if at all. Embracing the pivot to gambling and tobacco-style customer retention philosophies is purely an effort to salvage the sunk costs in an industry whose traditional customer base is being forced to shrink and input costs are being forced to rise by largely macroeconomic headwinds.

[radlad]

What fundamentals are those?

[dmbche]

The console market is shrinking and video games are becoming synonymous with PC gaming ( and handhelds I guess but Xbox isn't doing handhelds I think)

[strictnein]

Xbox has handhelds, but they're made by partners and are more about streaming games. Example: https://www.xbox.com/en-US/handhelds/rog-xbox-ally