What philosophy would that be?. They tried their own thing and now we call them the frat boy console company that only sells brown and grey shooters. Whenever they try anything new they'll be shot down, just watch. it'll either be them "copying" someone or it'll be a huge letdown, there is virtually no winning with MS this gen and likely the next either. 

Also everyone has copied one another at some point, especially Sony, Nintendo and MS.

Nintendo and Sony have developmental philosophies which they implent into their games. By last gen Sony had a streamline blue print for what their games will be like as far as aesthetic, where they follow the Naughty Dog model. Nintendos is a follows a clear platforming and party game aesthetic inspired by the disney model of doing things. 

What thing did they try? Gears wasnt made by Microsoft and Halo was purchased by them mid concept. 

Microsoft needs to find what they want to bring to gaming and use that to make themselves special. Until then they will be known as the me too brand to sony with no conceptual ability outside of Forza, but they've been great at simulation games since the mid 90's.

You mean the tomb raider model?

Uncharted borrowed partly from tomb raider, resident evil 4 and killswitch similarly to gears with the last two games. Gears didn't copy tomb raider but the other two games I mentioned. Eventually as each game progressed it became its own thing without forgetting to core roots. This is why gears lacks verticality and platforming. Naughty dog created a model that partially took inspiration From raider but coupled with sonys heavy cinematic and storytelling aspects turned into a beast of its own, inspiring tomb raider to be reborn relevant again. In that same breath EA copied sonys rendition of god of war twice (which was inspired by devil may cry). Sony turns these games into their own thing. I'm sure you know Star Wars the force unleashed and dantes inferno. They also copied uncharted as the model for star wars 1313. Since uncharteds writer left naughty dog to work at ea I have a feeling that's the project she will work on.

Sony and nintnedo have developers who have helped inspire and revitalize the industry as well as learn from it.

So Sony can take from other games and put their own twist into it so can Microsoft. 

Nintendo and Sony have developmental philosophies which they implent into their games. By last gen Sony had a streamline blue print for what their games will be like as far as aesthetic, where they follow the Naughty Dog model. Nintendos is a follows a clear platforming and party game aesthetic inspired by the disney model of doing things. 

What thing did they try? Gears wasnt made by Microsoft and Halo was purchased by them mid concept. 

Microsoft needs to find what they want to bring to gaming and use that to make themselves special. Until then they will be known as the me too brand to sony with no conceptual ability outside of Forza, but they've been great at simulation games since the mid 90's.

What specialty can they hope to even bring to the table that truly makes them one of a kind and worthy of high praise for their design philosophy? (that absolutely doesn't exist already and has been done by others in a field that has already been taken and works rather well for said company taking the spot).

Being known for flight Sim doesn't exactly scream exciting or anything short of amazing, same with how they are regarded as the "dudebro" console that gives out dudebro games, it doesn't exactly sound exciting or unique when they are labeled as such. 

They are the ones that need to find their identity or change it... it isn't out of reason that they got know as dudebro console... their efforts on Halo and Gears were quite bigger than FM and Fable, and outside these 4 they haven't really made much