Part of the reason PC gaming isn’t that big anymore is that there’s no unified voice pushing it as a platform. No marketing or promotion, no particular OS support (games for windows live is an abortion), etc. Long ago it wasn’t needed so much - hardcore gaming was much less mainstream and the people who engaged in it were typically savvier and knew the value of PC gaming. But when things became more mainstream and people have no idea what the fuck they’re talking about (I still hear “how could a PC possibly be as good as an xbox?” or “oh sure you can pc game if you want but you have to spend $5000 and then $600 every 6 months” all the time), it could’ve used a guiding hand promoting and integrating it into OSes, coming up with new standards and such.
Microsoft would’ve been a natural entity to do such a thing, or at least to be part of a collaborative effort in the industry, except that they have a conflict of interest by promoting their own console. Then they don’t want to play up, promote, integrate, or make easier PC gaming because if they manage to let people know how much better it is, they’ll lose business on their consoles. They actually have an incentive to work against the adoption of PC gaming.
I don’t really think Microsoft has any vested interest in putting forth any effort to do this even if they DIDN’T have a console. Why should they? They don’t need PC gaming. Anyways, it looks like they are doubling down for this generation.