It's taken eight years, but finally Game Pass is positioned to save the Xbox console business and give Xbox a point

My son is all-in on Xbox. On the TV he only plays Xbox. He prefers the Xbox UI and services (not that he’d use that term, he’s not a robot), the Xbox controller, and the fact that he has Game Pass on there. He has multiple Xbox hoodies and bemoaned the lack of an Xbox birthday cake in the supermarket that was selling a PlayStation-branded one. When I ask him if he thinks he’ll prefer PlayStation one day, he’s typically pre-teen: “Why would I?” he replies as if talking to the world’s dumbest man. He’s not a console warrior, but it’s fair to say that Xbox is his life.

My feelings on Xbox change every time I attempt to figure out what my feelings are. I’ve stared at that sentence on and off for a week or so, wondering if I can just stop there and publish, letting people think I’ve made a highly intellectual point and didn’t in fact just have a jumbled mess of thoughts stuck in my head.

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I want to say something about the present and future of Microsoft’s gaming division, but what exactly, and where do I possibly start? As someone with more fondness for Xbox than the average person (no doubt why my son is so keen on the console that “has no games”) I find it bizarre in the extreme that we are entering what might be the best period for Xbox-published games of all time while the uncertainty over the future of the company’s console business and general public sentiment has never been rockier.