It was as much a pragmatic choice as an inspired one; commodity pc hardware was obviously getting close to cheap enough. Others have suggested Microsoft lost mo

It was as much a pragmatic choice as an inspired one; commodity pc hardware was obviously getting close to cheap enough. Others have suggested Microsoft lost money with this move, even if so it was probably still a pragmatic choice. Microsoft were entering a market that has been notoriously unfriendly to new entrants and spending more on hardware to ensure a successful launch of such an ambitious brand could be argued to make sense, with consoles able to recoup hardware loses in software revenues. It was likely more about making it easy to port existing windows directx based games quickly and cheaply. Similarly, it granted a development stack that a great many developers would already be somewhat familiar with. All good things for a new entrant to a tough marketplace. Presumably it also allowed them to get to market faster? Much less custom silicon?