Xbox software output continues to under-deliver, so let's have a disucssion over getting rid of hardware-- one of the few things they're actually getting right lately. Makes sense.
I'd like to think you've both severely over-estimated demand for Xbox software-- with how weak recent gens have been; while the classic Xbox+360 titles will either have been experienced already by older gamers, or have less appeal to younger ones --and under-estimated the genuine need for a direct competitor to PlayStation in the hardware space, at least for the general spread of modern 3rd party games, but also as the main entry point for Xbox's services that ties consumers into their ecosystem going forward.
Thinking that either Nintendo or PC could be direct alternatives to PlayStation hardware in their current states, is just outright poppycock.
As long as Xbox can sell a baseline of at least 50-60M units every gen, I don't think they're wasting money or effort. But if they were to have more successive years of failures with numbers continuing to decline, we'd probably have to discuss more than just shedding hardware by the end of the gen; these failures don't just effect hardware, but more importantly the market appeal of Gamepass, which promotes Xbox published titles day one as one of it's core selling-points.
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