You've misunderstood everything. Nobody is saying they prefer to sell less consoles rather than more. You've missed the point. Phil was saying he doesn't care if you stay on past gen or other platforms as long as you subscribe to our new platform gamepass because we are trying to drive engagement rather than console sales. Hence why no new next gen games on the console and the most barren xbox launch in existence, hence why Halo and Forza were crossgen and on PC. Hence why they secured chips for cloud first. Their strategy was driven by gamepass first.
All he was saying was yes, we want engagment on all platforms out there we have gamepass on. But "no new next gen games" was not the case, they did have games ready and follow ups, they just didn't pan out as good as hoped.
The crossgen decision was purely monitary in terms of sales, just like it was for sony on the traditional sales front. The PC support was there for 15 years and had nothing to do with it.
The strategy wasn't gamepass first, it was traditional sales and gamepass combined.
As to them securing chips for cloud first, they held back a very tiny amount for only a short period. (as to not tank the service and lose more existing customers)
Did the numbers drop at some point? Even in 2022? No.
If you believe the delays are unrelated fine but I believe that those delays were aided by the fact that revenue would be incoming for a gamepass release as long as the numbers were increasing and a delay wouldn't be as costly as a studio relying on game sales and getting no revenue but incurring cost during that delay. You may disagree.
No but considering a ton of consoles were sold, there should have been an increase. I would disagree with the above, I would say delaying games when you are trying to hook people into a new service is the exact opposite of what you want. It attracts less new customers and potentialy loses ones you just fought hard to gain.
In addition, I've always maintined that subscrition services could in fact increase quality of games as the company knows the cash flow is there and they don't have to release garbage. Especially for smaller studios who otherwise might have had no choice.
Not a guarantee, but if managed right, there are advantages. Where as some instead argue the opposite, they would just sit back and do nothing. (which of course doesn't take into account the traditional sales that are still counted on in addition to the subscription money)
It also doesn't make a lot of sense for most proffesionals, do most NBA players sit back and do nothing once they sign for 150 million for 5 years? Nope, the vast majority work hard to accomplish things and think about the next contract. (just as the game publishers have to do)
I mean the money is just flowing in like a subscription service, they could just slow down and do nothing.......
I bet if you talk to the developers at MS, not a single one of them felt they could lift the foot off the gas due to gamepass. If anything they were (and still are) under immense pressure to deliver, and do it quickly.