Coming up on 6 years after it's release, it's safe to say that the Xbox Series has not been a smash hit; what do you think MS should have done differently with the console, and how much of a difference do you think it would have made?

A lot of their troubles started already in the 360 era when they lost Bungie and Epic and eventually Lionhead, and the studios that replaced them just weren’t as talented.

They did eventually buy new studios, but apart from Playground, those studios didn’t make the kind of AAA flagship games that they previously had.

Meanwhile Sony was making generation defining games on the PS4 that consistently showed up in GOTY lists.

For sure, Xbox didn’t do a good job with Series software either. Halo Infinite wasn’t what it should have been. Nor Starfield. Nor Hellblade 2. Matt Booty should definitely get the boot.

But the kind of negative momentum they had after the XB1, and the positive momentum Sony had - that is difficult to turn around. Not impossible, but the failure of Xbox Series had at least as much to with what happened before its launch as what happened after.

Instead of $299, charge $329 and give Series S 12GB instead of just 10GB. Maybe they could bump up the 512GB storage to 1TB as well for that price. If so great, if not then 512GB storage was enough. Maybe instead, charge $550 for the Series X and use that to help subsidize the Series S upgrades at $299. I doubt Series X would've lost many sales being another $50 more since it was marketed as the enthusiast model. Doing this and never having to deal with the negative Series S dev news would've been worth it.

MS should've made their big acquisitions sooner if possible. This type of news prior to launch, or during the launch year would've boosted sales no doubt. They waited too long and it didn't help much.

They needed to get their supply chain figured out. Even if they did those other things and were more successful this gen, they would be paying for it dearly now.

I won't get into GP because MS was full steam ahead at that point so other than minor changes to the service, that's not going to change period.

Nothing they could've or would've done would bring them back to 360 numbers, but they could've at least kept on par with XB1.

My answer to this has been and continues to be this: just do what Nintendo did. Pump out exclusives (not just console exclusives i.e. no PC release), invest in marketing, and perform some crowd-pleasing stunts (e.g. Sony’s famous “299” clip, Smash Ultimate’s “Everyone Is Here!”, and XB360’s comparably generous launch MSRP). You generate some powerful buzz and all the sudden you’ve got a successful system… well I think that’s how that works at least lol.

Copied whatever they were doing between 2005-2009 and call it Xbox 4, for crying out loud lol

I think there's nothing wrong with what they did with the hardware. What they did wrong was their software lineup and lack/bad marketing. Phil should have not been so trusting of these studios and cracked that whip on them. No reason some of those games should have taken that long to come out and he should have had the foresight to do more with Bethesda's IPs as soon as they acquired them back in 2021. As soon as they got them they should have been moving to get remasters and new games green lit even if it meant getting external studios to make them. Should have been easy Ws early in the generation, but he let them do what they wanted and even a Double Fine employee said they pitched the most unpitchable game (Keeper) and it got greenlit.

Yeah, I'd concur with what several folks have said that above all they really needed more big games and sooner.

Less niche stuff and more killer apps.

A better name and marketing wouldn't have hurt either.

This generation is harder to fix than say the Xbox One. Xbox One is relatively easy - launch in 2012 with Halo 4 as a cross-gen launch title for $399 without Kinect and don't have the mandatory online announcement. A better name as well. In hindsight Xbox has always had a close relationship with Bethesda and could have acquired them in the early 360 days and have made Fallout 3, New Vegas, 4, as well as Skyrim as Xbox console exclusives. 

As far as this generation the issue is the acquisitions happened too late as it takes so long to develop games. Though, what I would have done is put Obsidian on a new Fallout game years earlier, which could have meant it coming out in 2024 or 2025. Letting studios develop what they are passionate about I commend Phil for doing. But that hasn't worked and resulted in thousands of people laid off. 

Xbox marketing hasn't been very good for a long time. The marketing for Halo 3 was top notch, but since then has been lackluster.

It feels like Xbox gave up as soon as Starfield came out and wasn't a 10/10 game and quickly decided to release everything on PS5 and Switch. I would have not done so. Forza Horizon 6 boosted Xbox Series sales for the month of May despite how expensive the console is now and the game coming to PS5 in 6 months. 

I would not have shadow dropped Oblivion Remastered and instead keep it Xbox/PC and hype it up as it has been so long since a new Elder Scrolls had come out to help sell consoles. 

Xbox also shot themselves in the foot not securing a longer term contract for the parts for Xbox Series, which is why the price for it increased well before the PS5 did. Sony was able to stockpile parts. If they had better deals in place they might have been able to not have increased the price for longer. 

I don't see a way Xbox Series X|S would match or beat PS5, but they could have done things better and kept the momentum going into the next-generation. 

Going into this generation I originally thought the Xbox Series X|S would have sold better than the Xbox One, but worse than the Xbox 360 (Something like ~70m lifetime). That is with Halo Infinite at launch and being better than it was, Starfield coming out in 2022 and being better than it was, a new Obsidian Fallout game, Fable in 2023 or 2024, Elder Scrolls 6 in 2026, etc. Oh and with the prices going DOWN and not UP. Imagine if the Xbox Series S was $200 and Xbox Series X was $350/$400 at this point in time. 

I get Asha Sharma shifting to their biggest IPs. People won't buy a console for smaller or AA games. But they will for a new Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Halo, Forza Horizon, Gears of War, Fable, and w/e else Activision Blizzard has up their sleeves. CoD will NOT go exclusive, but Xbox could market the fact they own the franchise now and release CoD-themed Xbox consoles.