Good writing there, thanks. My thoughts pretty much.

I personally would be so much happier if Microsoft restricted itself to providing the OS and the tools to make/run games (maybe even produce PC games of their own), but left the delivery/store etc. to 3rd parties, like Steam and GOG. But apparently it is too lucrative to pass by the possibility of getting a cut from each game/software purchase that people do on their Windows machines. Yeah, Apple/Google/Sony probably make loads of money with that model, I'd just wish MS didn't try to turn the whole PC/Windows ecosystem to such a closed personal money making system of their own.

The increased freedom of the PC ecosystem is why so many of us prefer it over e.g. gaming consoles (or iOS products), and now Microsoft is increasingly trying to turn PCs to that walled garden paradigm that many of us try to avoid.

Their games were quite awesome, they should just stick to that and release "Zoo Tycoon Complete", "Age of Empires 2 HD), etc... DRM free already.

In turn driving more people away towards Linux all the time.
If MS would focus on games as in making their OS highly backwards compatible (up to 16 bit windows games) and efficient when it comes to performance (smaller overhead), I'd still see a point in their existence but by now I really don't see it anymore. It's a big machine that is too busy with just supporting its own weight.

No, I pointed out hardware inferiority because I suspect they want to stream Xbone games on your PC, which is a waste of power and money to do; because of the bad hardware. As I said before, I'm wary of MS and not much more. If this turns out to be good, I'll eat my words, but as I said before, this seems like a tickbox feature to fill for the console wars rather than something the PC users can benefit from.

Hardware level level change isn't necessary for good gameplay. They just don't make many non mass market games on consoles. BTW, kinect isn't really needed for motion tracking / controls on PC. All MS needs to do is make a software for recognizing actions on a webcam. It'll be cheaper and you won't have to have that big awkward thing on your desktop. And controllers can be bought independently too.

I see MS's actions as approaching more toward getting a longer featurelist advertised for the Xbone. I agree this is an illegitimate concern for most people. You are free to disagree and rub it in my face when they do good, but I'll remain skeptical.
I apologize for not looking more deeply. I searched for a headline I saw a few months ago and went to the top result. Thanks for pointing out another bad apple on forbes. Seems the place is degrading day by day.

Personal or not, its still more collecting more, though I understand its really little more than implied agreement customer feedback. I still think not having it is better though.