Comment by Borealid

Their strategy WAS GamePass - get a bunch of users accumulating huge collections of inexpensive-but-high-value games, paid for via a subscription (rented), that are only playable on Windows (enforced via Microsoft's own software and an account login). Use loss aversion to prevent the users from letting their subscriptions lapse.

They made a tactical mistake by trying to directly monetize the GamePass subscription instead of having it remain a purposefully-underpriced vendor lock-in mechanism. Whoops.