Of course the server I play games on knows when I play - just as the website I visit will always know I visited it. Who cares though, and if one cares, why do they play online games?
Anyways, I'm also pretty sure Microsoft gets pinged nearly every time one opens an application (unless a power user disables it), so they already know either way - what's the new risk?
The article provides no detail on new privacy risk, yet it is the title of the piece… is there some new vector? I agree with your sentiment that it’s not like Microsoft just gained access to some entirely new portfolio of information about you, they already have access to the superset of this data since they own Xbox (PlayStation provides a million data points on the amount of time, progress, and trophies I earn in games that are not owned by Sony - i assume the same for Xbox?)
Fine if you want to postulate as to what these privacy risks are but wtf, the article provides no detail whatsoever here lol.
Toyota's new 'more we know about you' program randomly extends their warranty for 2 years (or +50k miles) for new car buyers who have Crash Bandicoot game time in their dataset. Also Walmart will give $30 back on purchases >$125 if you have played at least five hours X-Men Legends in the last week while they're promoting the new Wolverine movie.
It's not all good though ... people who play Call of Duty are more likely to default on their loans and World of Warcraft is well known to have a strong correlation with sexual predators. Banks and FBI buy the relatively cheap video game data and use it to decide which individual's browsing history ($$$) and pc usage telemetry ($$$) to buy from Microsoft.
If those things don't seem like issues to you, there are no problems. Then again, if you don't care about privacy at all it is a little strange to engage with an article that is about privacy.
Anyways, I'm also pretty sure Microsoft gets pinged nearly every time one opens an application (unless a power user disables it), so they already know either way - what's the new risk?