If the console function is just for BC, then Xbox is asking you to pay a premium for the reward of buying a digital replacement for the Xbox Series X you already own, and then charging you an addl tax b/c they say you also need a PC to go along with it, b/c they can’t sell enough consoles to keep devs from skipping Xbox.
If the console function is forward-compatible and a true successor to the Xbox Series X, but it is locked down in some way, either by running within a sandbox, logically separated (drive partitioning), or physically separated (the OS’ sit on different storage chips), will it have access to all of the box’ resources? If the box has 32GB of VRAM, will the “console” have access to all 32? Historically, we only allow that sub-system to have access to some capped number of the total resources, not all. And so if someone is not interested in playing PC games, are they paying for bundled resources and capabilities they don’t need just to get access to the next gen console? If it is forward compatible, then again Xbox is telling you you cannot buy the console stand-alone, but that you must buy it as a bundle with the PC…b/c they cannot sell enough consoles to keep devs from skipping Xbox.
In fact, they are telling you you can’t buy either stand-alone. They are taking away the option even for BC for you to just keep your Xbox Series X for BC and legacy play, as they will not sell you their Xbox-branded PC w/o the console sub-system.
At the end of the day, either way, Xbox is punishing their die-hard consumers by gold-plating a device due to their shortcomings. Making their consumer bear the burden of their reduced market demand.
This is how we define “the New Xbox Tax”.
As a post-script, then the further question is how is this an appealing value-prop to new gamers onboarding to the hobby? Certainly, some will be interested in playing a back-catalog of games, particularly if they are interested in becoming a Game Pass subscriber and having access to them “for free”. But outside of that, for other consumers with different use-cases, again, this will be a sub-system as a feature that may offer little to them. They are interested in onboarding into gaming now and skating forward into the future. Additionally, if they wanted to play those old games, they can do so either via the massive markdowns on Steam, or wait for a sale in the Xbox Store; point being that either way there are plenty of those games that are available as a PC version. Frankly, any of them that really matter. So Xbox is asking those gamers to swallow buying an Xbox legacy sub-system that may be of no value to them in order to by an Xbox-branded COTS PC. And for that, a better alternative could be seen in just obtaining an entry level desktop gaming PC that is upgradable and not locked for the next seven years.
Rounding Off Infinity 