Was this gen unwinnable for Xbox?

[Zkuq]

RolStoppable said:

It was unwinnable based on how much Microsoft damaged itself with the Xbox One launch proposals and the decisions that were later on being made by Phil Spencer, such as the refusal to make exclusives for Xbox as well as their general mismanagement of first party studios and IPs. They had good chances to do better than they did with the Xbox One, but that was undone by additional bad decisions by Phil Spencer, most prominently the recent move to turn Microsoft in a complete multiplatform publisher.

The only possibility to beat the PS5 required Sony to commit PS3-like blunders to create an opening, but Sony didn't. Unwinnable, however, does not imply doomed to self-destruction of one's console business. Based on the circumstances, the Xbox Series would have been a generation to rebuild consumer trust and work as a setup to become a serious challenger again during the generation afterwards.

I think this nails it. Series S|X were doomed to lose the race by much earlier decisions, but it could definitely have done better - so much better that we wouldn't need to ridicule it. There's no reason why Series S|X couldn't have done better than Xbox One, had better decisions been made, especially since Sony hasn't exactly been doing exceptionally well either (aside from sales, of course, but it's not been great in terms of exclusive releases).