Apparently, they are a thing of the past now:
I will admit that the ones I see never have the crowds in them, as the Apple stores do… Just like the new story said…
Windows outsells Apple, but apparently no one wants to go straight to a MS store. I guess they go to Best Buy instead 
But remember, the Apple stores are mostly selling iPhones, iPads and Apple Watch…none of which MS has
I know. The ipads and iphones seem to have the largest crowds in the stores…
There aren’t many MS Stores up here in the Great White North, but I have been in the one in Yorkdale Mall in Toronto. I went in as a looky-loo just to say I had the experience. It was very quiet in there, and thus the staff we very attentive. It allowed me to feel Alcantara in person… and to decide it was something I wouldn’t want in my life even if I had the budget for an expensive MS device. I think that since there will now be nowhere to go to put hands on MS Hardware that people with an interest will have to buy them online, and then return them if they don’t meet their expectations.
Side discussion:
They might be able to go to Best Buy for a hands on experience, but my experiences with Best Buy are all negative and I wouldn’t go in one unless I needed something desperately and I couldn’t wait to have it delivered. We used to have Future Shop stores, that Best Buy bought and then closed, but Future Shop was cleaner and had a better layout and more stock. It feels to me like Best Buy is right on the edge of failure/closing, at least here in Canada.
I feel like people have more confidence in the Apple experience more than the Microsoft experience. It seems like Microsoft doesn’t know what Microsoft is doing most of the time 
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Another Microsoft “thing” that never really escaped into the wide world. Like pretty much all failures, they make a US release, then can it, before it really goes international (I think there were a couple of stores in Blighty and Oz, but that was about it).