Xbox One; was it a successful console?

[Shinobi-san]

Mr Puggsly said:

Shinobi-san said:

Learning from mistakes with a failure is not the same as a success.

Its quite clear to me that Xbox One was a catastrophic failure. The 360 has legendary status in terms of consoles. MS was setting themselves up for complete market domination, and back then market domination meant raw console sales figures - which leads to higher attach ratios and subscription services. For the most part, even up to today, success is still defined quite largely by the sales figures of the console. How was it not a failure.

If the Xbox One made a profit and still maintained a significant chunk of their following, while also getting people hyped about the Series S/X, then "catastrophic failure" might be hyperbole.

"MS was setting themselves up for complete market domination." This comment can be seen as either delusional or ignorant. MS was not going to dominate the market, Sony was still very popular but chased people away with PS3. Meanwhile Wii was the market leader during the same period.

Even if MS did everything right with Xbox One (avoided obvious mistakes), they had little chance of stopping Sony from leading. At best the market share disparity would just be smaller.

If MS threw in the towel after a few years of Xbox One failing, then I could see the platform as a true failure. But instead they seemingly made a profit, made Gamepass a great success and found a respectable marketshare for a viable platform. If it was the failure you're suggesting, then I don't understand why MS investing so much in the brand.

I really don't think we should judge success purely by Profit. If that's how you want to define it in this context then cool case closed. By that logic though Sony Xperia phones are "successful". I also don't think that they managed to retain a significant chunk of their following. Its been quite a drastic loss in comparison to X360.

They definitely would have been aiming to dominate the market with the 360 brand being strong amongst core gamers and the Kinect doing really well with the casuals. They had all the ingredients to dominate - I dont see why they wouldnt target to expand their customer base or at the very least maintain what they had? 

I agree with a lot of the bolded, but that speaks more to the success of MS in moving the brand forward despite the Xbox One failure. 

Edit: I mean its even evident in the post Xbox One strategies employed by MS whereby little emphasis is placed on the hardware, circumventing the need to even have a successful console at all.