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Windows 12 May Require a Subscription
(www.pcmag.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
That's IMHO the best scenario we can hope for, though it doesn't seem promising even to pessimists like me.
My updated edit has an even better scenario that I just conjured up. Essentially bringing Windows 365 (cloud desktop) to home thin clients, netbooks, or even STBs like the series S.
The Series S (and its descendants) would be a hell of a versatile system as a cloud desktop with official licensing and support from MS.
It would also give people a reason to actually buy a Series S which can only be a good thing. Currently their market share for the console is basically in the toilet.
As a casual gamer, I like my series S, but mostly because of Gamepass. I don’t tend to replay games after I beat them, so game ownership doesn’t mean much to me.
That has the drawback, though, of needing a lot of storage if I’m working on a few modern high-end games, and the kids have a bunch of games that they want to play, too. The built in storage on the Series S is pathetic. The supplemental storage is confusing as hell and the proprietary drive that you can launch X|S games from is ridiculously expensive. I do really hate having to plan which games I’m going to play (and when) around download and copy times, and balance that against the games that I have currently and want to play.
Now, if the Xbox could easily be paired with a keyboard/mouse/4k display to be a fully-functional desktop computer while still retaining its capability as a current-gen gaming system? Shut up and take my money. What an incredible value add, and MS gets all the sweet sweet telemetry of a family computer.