Talking about the Xbox in isolation, yes. The problem is, that would put them at serious risk of getting Dreamcasted, as people would be like "nah, I'll just wait a year for a more powerful PS5."

Yes and no.  It would definitely be alone on the market, helping it build hype for a new Xbox console and gen, while keeping attention off of the XBO beginning to absolutely crawl. But, it would also mean that Sony would absolutely be able to have a step up on the Scarlett in every way.  They would have to have gone with Zen+, instead of Zen 2.  Vega, instead of Navi.  I doubt they would have even troubled with any ray-tracing HW, either.  May not even have gone with SSD.  It would probably lead to a Dreamcast scenario.  Okay sales at first, only to be completely outshined by the PS5.  Now, they at least have a chance at hitting 50M, again.  Personally, I don't think it's a really good chance, but better than if they came out this year.

This.. Many posters here are grossly missing the point that gaming overall is transitioning away from the console model and towards a service. MS are being prepared for this new model. It will benefit them in the long term.

Oof. Next year and a half is going to be brutal for sales as the Nextbox gets put to market. Still, getting outsold more than 3:1 in the US against is kinda embarrassing though.

The XBox360 released a year before the PS3 and that worked out pretty well for them.  The main problem with Dreamcast was not the release date.  It was that Sega was out of money and couldn't afford to stay in the console business.  Microsoft is not going to have that problem.  Releasing this year would have been a good idea.

I think they having given up on Xbox for quite some time. They want it to be a service. Next gen I can't see them doing better either. Best chance is to release before PS5 and also less expensive. Power will not matter much. Releasing in 2019 would have been a good option. But they need some games or timed exclusive or something to get some interest among gamers like they did with the 360

Microsoft is focusing on next-gen at this point. Honestly, they should've launched Gears of War with the new Xbox and the new Ninja theory game as well.

The big reason they did so well last gen is because the PS3 was $200 more expensive than the 360 and the PS3 had such complicated HW that it took devs awhile to get used to it, resulting in inferior multiplats for the first year or so. Scarlett will be going against a PS5 with most likely the same price and possibly a little more power, which will be on display at launch.

If MS launched this year, they may have been able to drop the price by $50 in time for the PS5's launch, but there would have been a much larger power difference. In that scenario, there is no question that Scarlett would have fared much worse than the XBO.

Not surprised. I really don't think its that it's end of gen it's most likely that people faced the facts and see that there is no reason to own an Xbox. Where to really be because of end of gen then the ps4 would also be suffering such a drop.

As others have said, it's not quite analogous to PS3 vs 360; a lot of 360's gains came from Sony's disastrous missteps with the PS3, MS cannot rely on Sony being that foolish again with PS5. If Scarlet came out this year, then Sony followed with a significantly more capable PS5 next year, Xbox would most likely get steamrolled. For Scarlet to have a fighting chance they need to be both price and power competitive, that's not gonna happen if they go a year early.