I'm excited to check this out. I never played the first version, but I did just finish playing through Smalland, and while I liked it, I found myself wishing for more engaging content.
I only have about 50 hours, but always enjoyed the game. Have been thinking about going back to it, but at this point I'll probably wait for the new one.
Yeah, it would be totally onboard for that!! I think one challenge with such a system would be defining its primary identify. Is it a gaming PC that can also run xbox games, or is it an xbox that also has a Windows desktop? I think the 1st would be more useful of a system, but also would have more challenges to create, both for technical and legal reasons.
An xbox with a desktop would be a lot easier. Just add an app to the xbox that is a fully sandboxed Windows desktop. That exact app already exists on Windows 11 Enterprise Edition for Sandbox mode, it would only need minor tweaking. It would mean the Windows desktop would be essentially limited to what a VM can do. The only complicated thing is people will expect to be able to play PC games on the desktop, so they would have to get some form of GPU passthrough working, but the other VM limitations would be (in my opinion) acceptable for something as low-cost as an xbox.
From a tinkerer's perspective, this sounds like a no-brainer, but from a cooperate perspective, it would create a lot of support obligations for Microsoft, which is probably why they will never officially do it.