http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/03/01/microsoft-has-a-lot-to-prove-with-pc-gaming

"As Microsoft moves to unify Xbox and PC, the failure of Games for Windows Live still haunts Phil Spencer."

The thing is Phil is that we PC gamers DO NOT Xbox and PC to be unifyed.

We want PC to be its own thing, and leave Xbox to be its own thing.

Why are you trying to merge the 2? And how does it figuartively increases Profit sales to you?

And why are they against the 'merging' of the two? Gamers these days...

Why should there be a merging of Xbox and PC at all?

It would be better if they merged with the other publishers that joined the GOG ranks already and forget about all that Xbox gimmicky stuff merging...

To play Xbox games without having to buy an Xbox, on the PC? I don't care about that.

Why are you against the 'merging'?

Though yes, a GOG merger is the best, but it seems the idea of merging Xbox with PC is just disliked without a good reason.

Buy once, play on any platform? So those that had bought Rise of the Tomb Raider on XBox One when it came out would also have access to the PC version, with whatever improvements that brings.
Or those that buy a game for PC can also play it on their XBox later on.

As a Windows 8.1 and 10 user, I'll take the Start Screen (with a keyboard and a mouse setup nonetheless) overthe overrated Start Menu, and that speaks so much for itself. You can at worst ignore it, but it'll never 'impede the real functions its supposed to serve' as you so say. I can do just as much with Windows 8.1 and 10 as I could do with 7, if not actually more.

We haven't seen what their merger is for, but you could go by what JMich said above. Basically, why are you against it, with solid proof?

Can anyone explain what kind of unification that would be?
I read the article and understand nothing regarding uniting PC and Xbox part.

The only thing I understand from the article was friend list / social features can be used on both PC and Xbox.
There have to be more than that right?

How is the Start Menu inferior to the Start Screen.

And besides the market has spoken and Microsoft reintroduced it in Windows 10.

That is still a zero if I personally don't like the feature. And I did say it can at best be ignored.

I'm against it because I don't believe there's anything positive to carry over from that platform in terms of features. Dual ownership is something they will never do, IMO. They'll lose out on royalties sold for Xbox platform sales, and if its Xbox first, then why bother paying more to get it on PC and an inferior system when you can just get it on PC for cheaper.

I also don't want my whole OS to become one DRM platform like steam with my OS locking down game files like a DRM client but, its an OS. I mean, think of what would happen if your MS account and Xbox account were the same. Its the literal smartphonification of everything into one giant account.

What's this "we" stuff? In my opinion, the fewer exclusives, the better. If there's one thing I absolutely despise, it's the so-called console wars and/or platform wars. It's a corporation. Corporations are in it to make money. They do not care about you beyond your capacity to buy their shit. People who genuinely feel some sense of loyalty to a corporate entity also genuinely deserve to get shat on as often as they do for blind consumerism.

Being a platform IDORT is the way to go, imo, and the fewer platforms I have to buy to enjoy the broadest array of gameplay opportunities, the better, in my personal opinion.

Limited area to let you see your programs is one. Another is that a mis-click kicked you out of the whole Menu. Not to mention the Screen can be designed to be prettier than any Menu you'd think of. It doesn't matter if when clearly half of the time their only spoken reasons involve how the interface is hard to navigate with a mouse and keyboard setup, when it clearly works for a mouse and a keyboard setup no problem.
It's the Windows Store, not the whole OS, and what would happen? Nothing would happen; in fact they're both one and the same. What are'you complaining about again?

It's like we never complained about being charged for various ports of the games yesterday, now we're complaining about having access to the same game on two different devices (inferior or not, though that part was sort of bullcrap) at the same time.

Is the whole OS because the XBox stuff is deeply integrated into it. Even if you use the command line to disable the XBox app, you only disable the front-end, the three related services are left in place ready to run under demand, aren't way to fully remove the thing for the OS, all that you can make is to disable the services by yourself. All very easy and user friendly is you not like XBox in you system, disable the app through the command line and the related services through the administrative tools.

Dism and powershell are your friends. For more info, read and [url=http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/62672-List-of-quot-Things-to-Do-quot-Immediately-After-a-Windows-10-Installation/page6?p=1089407&viewfull=1#post1089407]here. If you are unsure about what the commands do, do not run them.