Drug dealers don't do that. You don't need to create a market for drugs, if you've got decent stuff to sell people will buy it.

XBOX COFOUNDER SAYS MICROSOFT IS QUIETLY SUNSETTING THE PLATFORM

More seriously, the distance between the X-Box OS and the Windows OS was always measured in inches. Maybe they finally decided to give up the ghost and just admit they were selling people mid-range PCs with a console skinned GUI.

Nintendo has the securist market with its portable console.

Cause they actually try to make a console that's not just "Discount PC With Coupon For Streaming Service".

Even then, it's mostly an under-powered PC that makes up the difference with a few gimmicks. Which is fine. But you're still left asking "Why would I buy a PS6 / X-Box One+One+360^Infinity^ when I could just get this shit on PC in another six months?" Other than tinkering with controllers, neither have done anything interesting since the Kinect flopped.

I fucking hate all the prompts for the XBOX Game Bar in freaking Windows Server OS

Nintendo has the securist market with its portable console.

hmmmm the Steam Deck is eating away at that cake... I know my son was an avid Nintendo fan and didn't even look at the Switch 2 because his 3 year old Steam Deck is doing everything he wants

Stadia worked on chrome browsers. I think you needed their controller though, but I got mine for free with a Chromecast purchase. For TVs you needed a Chromecast or a Android TV

I think there's a setting that'll turn that off.

But also... Linux Mint is a pretty easy lift and shift.

Oh I am all Linux where I can... I do not get to admin those servers so I am stuck with microslop

Facebook marketplace, eBay, pawn shops. You just have to be patient, and wait for the right deal. It won't take long, musicians are notorious for buying gear that they never, or barely, use. They are also notorious for needing money, and dumping their old gear.

BTW, pawn shops used to be great for buying guitars and other musical instruments, but that's passed. Now they put the good stuff on eBay, and the stuff in the stores is the junk that nobody would bite on. OTOH, you can still find good deals on other gear like recorders, interfaces, microphones, etc. I got a nice Focusrite Scarlett interface at a pawn shop for about $20, and it looked brand-new. I've used it every day, and never had a problem.

I just got a Boss BR-600 digital recorder, which has a built in drum machine, and a LOT of guitar pedal and amp effects, including a bass simulator that makes my guitar sound like a bass. It even has a pair of condenser mics built in. So I can literally record as if I'm an entire band. It's also really thin, and smaller than a laptop, so it will fit in the pocket of my gig bag. It looked brand-new, and it only cost me $56, with the case, and the original price was $399. It's so ridiculously cool, and it's become my new favorite piece of gear, other than my guitars.

Now I can lay down a drum track, play a rhythm guitar part along to it, add a bass line, mix it all down to single stereo track, put it on a loop, and play some screaming lead guitar over it for as long as I want. What a blast!

It's been a while since I used any MS product but I've got the same feeling with Google products. Weird bugs are starting to accumulate and at the same time they're cramming every corner with buttons for their new AI integrations, with no explanation of how they're supposed to work. It's a mess, the stuff they add in doesn't even respect the original app design so they're really starting to look like they're put together with toothpicks and duct tape.

That's not Microsoft's problem.

(I agree with you)

I broadly agree with what you are saying here, but, I think you are overlooking or perhaps unaware of something.

The Steam Frame.

It has its own internal ARM chip, is capable of running smaller games entirely self contained within itself.

And... as Proton is a translation layer that makes Windows games run on Linux... Valve has been massively either themselves aiding development of, or funding development of a similarish kind of translation layer (FeX) that converts x86 calls to ARM.

Which can also work in tandem with, layered with Proton.

So that means that a Steam Frame is technically capable of running many .APK (Android) games.

So... while things are tumultuous right now with the RAMpocalypse... Valve is laying the groundwork, in technical capacity, for mobile games to be broadly playable on its hardware, so its much less of a stretch to imagine that they could at some point open up an APK section on Steam's storefront.