There’s no such thing as a “Linux PC” though. A PC is a PC. Your PC can run Starfield with proton, or it can run it by installing windows, or it can run it by putting it in a windows VM.
Even if a game can only run on Windows and Xbox (say one of those GAAS shits that has invasive anti cheat), that’s not an exclusive either. It runs on more than one platform. There’s a developer endorsed way to buy the product on more than one platform. Exclusive means one platform - you can’t buy and play the game unless you own one specific device.
People would have to buy and refund this one to bomb it, versus overwatch which was f2p. It’ll probably settle at “mixed” or “mostly positive” until blizzard does something to try to squeeze more purchases out of the playerbase again.
Pokémon is an exclusive because you have to pirate it / break the console’s DRM to play it on PC. Also, Proton and Wine are explicitly not emulators - that’s actually what WINE stands for (Wine Is Not an Emulator). Starfield is natively available for more than one platform and not only does the Proton compatibility layer handle it but it’s being sold on Valve’s store and the top played game on the completely Windows-free Deck. Games that are released on one console and PC aren’t exclusives. God of War just isn’t on xbox and Starfield just isn’t on Playstation.
Do you need to buy a console to play it legally? If no, it’s not a game exclusive to that console. I have a PC. I can’t play exclusives like Demons Souls Remake without buying Sony’s $500 DRM machine. I can play non-exclusives like Starfield without buying Microsoft’s $300 DRM machine.
Linux runs Starfield with no problems. If it’s on a computer and doesn’t use restrictive DRM to control how and under which circumstances you run the software, it’s not an exclusive. Microsoft doesn’t have exclusives anymore, which is a giant pro-consumer move that doesn’t get enough applause in the gaming community. That doesn’t mean they need to develop stuff for one specific DRM box owned by their biggest competitor to be “anti-exclusive”.
The part that makes it confusing is that all of that also applies to a stiffer open-world western RPG like Fallout or Elder Scrolls. Nobody’s calling Skyrim (or more recently Starfield) an immersive sim. Half-Life often gets included and that game is completely linear and your three interaction choices for combat are “shoot with gun (including wacky woohoo gravity gun)”, “whack with crowbar”, or “sneak/run past”.
Is Elden Ring an immersive sim?
Honestly, the defining thing that modern “immersive sims” have that “rpg shooters” don’t is usually just “physics gun”. Gravity gun from HL, goo gun from prey, telekinesis in Dishonored. Sure it lets you “use the environment” instead of just shooting the zombie with a bullet, but you’re often just using the environment as a bullet.
That’s about using emulators in retail mode which nobody with half a brain thought was gonna stick around. You pay $20 to unlock developer mode and do all your emulation stuff in there. Retail is for playing actual xbox games.
Compete in terms of value, not price. The series S gets you Xbox’s current gen game library and a selection of 360 games, and if you’re willing to use dev mode a powerful emulation suite. Deck gets a huge percentage of Steam’s 20-year catalog as one-click installs, most other PC games that don’t use anticheat as slightly more involved installs, every PC game if you want to install windows, and also a powerful emulation suite. Plus it’s a dockable handheld instead of something that needs a monitor and controller.
The series S has better media apps and can be woken up from the couch, though.
The S is a stellar emulation box that doesn’t need to be jailbroken. It’s a hell of a lot easier to configure than a custom Linux distro like RetroPie and the hardware packs a punch. I don’t own one, but I’d be more likely to buy a series S than a PS5 or series X.