They are banking on 2 concepts that aren't proven to scale how they want them to:
- Gaming sub services
- Cloud streaming
Both are cool options.; but neither have proven to be some primary way people want to pay for and play games. Game sub services aren't brand new, and they can be lucrative.. recurring fee services in general are tempting for any business.
But MS seems to have convinced these 2 things are going to grow Xbox bigger than "consoles"; clearly selling the idea that Sony and Nintendo's meager 100+million or so customers they get when they have a good gen is small beans compared to what streaming + game subs will do.
Will they be right? Maybe.. but it's a pretty big maybe... and neither concept is brand new. Companies have been trying to get game streaming off the ground for a decade now, we all know how that has gone/is going (currently going nowhere fast). Multiple publishers have game sub services, and they are doing.. OK I guess? EA Play reported 6.5 million subs.. took 6 years to get there, and that service is cheap as fuck.. they have never mentioned numbers for EA Play Pro ($14.99) nor have Ubisoft mentioned numbers for their expensive Ubisoft+ service.