Shitty article. They weren't trying to build a car, they were trying to get the horse to pull a car. They were still selling physical media, just hamstringing it so it would be less useful than it is today. Want to build a "Steam for XBox", go right ahead. Want to make buying from "Steam for XBox" the only way to get games, go right ahead. But that's not what they did. They Said, buy games like today, oh, and here are a bunch of extra value-reducing "features" that go with it.