Consoles as a service. That phrase might scare you if you already recoil at the sound of ?games as a service,? but it?s increasingly looking like that?s the direction the gaming industry is headed in, and the writing is on the wall.
In news you wouldn?t have read on PlayStation LifeStyle, Microsoft announced today that the Halo Master Chief Collection is headed to Steam. You read that right. What is quite probably the Xbox?s most well-known exclusive is going to be available on PC. That?s like saying that the Uncharted series or God of War were going to be made available to play with a mouse and keyboard, but in this case, it?s actually happening. One big question surrounding this decision is ?why bother buying an Xbox console anymore"? It?s something I?ve been asking for some time now after Microsoft began its Play Anywhere initiative that effectively makes every Xbox game also available on PC.
The answer is that you don?t, and Microsoft doesn?t care. GamesIndustry.biz?s Amanda Farough summed things up quite nicely.

Honestly" You probably won?t need to. And Microsoft isn?t going to care. Their money is in cloud services (up 24 percent as of last quarter) and this is going to make BANK. We?re heading into a service/cloud war for attention for the next generation.
? Amanda Farough (@AmandaFarough) March 12, 2019

The idea here is that the platform is no longer the focus. It?s the service. Think about the likes of Google, Spotify, Amazon, and others. Two people c...