One of the reasons I think people considered PS3 a failure because it (allegedly) cost Sony all of the profits made during the entire PS2 era. They were on the brink of financial but collapse if articles of the day were to be believed.

Xbox One isn't doing the numbers that PS4 did but it also isn't costing M$ a billion dollars like the original Xbox, nor did they have to lose a billion dollars right out of the gate for something like the RRoD.

Not the best in sales or in games, though.

wow how quick people are to forget the console called the WiiU, - and by many here that was not considered a failure at all. Lets be realistic..XONE not as good as last gen with the 360 but now kinda meh with a little profit on the side for a business more concerned with other ventures. Many still support it with exclusives like Forza, Gears and Halo..It has it's decent size exclusive following and always will. Not really a failure by any means.

Sales?

I wouldn't call it a failure. It sells fairly well.

It's just also being compared to the PS4 and Switch, both of which are doing exceedingly well.

Why its not the same? well because its nintendo. We know nintendo can deliver since they been at this the longest. They have a ton of great ip's waiting to surface. they can and have made numerous new ones that people love. MS on the other hand has 3 ip's that the xbox is know for and are on the decline. Like the switch, gamers waited for a good product and know the games will follow, if MS brings a new xbox gamers can only count on the same 3 ip's from them and probably nothing more.

It's a failure in the general sense but it's not a failure to ms fans because it more or less gave them the games they bought the console for.

My thing with xbox... All games I want to play on Xbox are on PC, or headed to it. I've never owened an xbox, and I have no reason to now. Ryzen 7 1800x, and a GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 card. I see xbox one as a cheap all in one gaming device. You can't really get better performance than an Xbox One X for the money. My PC was almost 3k.

Actually I believe that the PS3 was considred a failure because it was solded at a loss for so long and cost Sony all the profit they gained from the PS2 years.  Yes it still sold units but if you are always bleeding money it comes in the red on the balance sheets.

The Xbox one is probably many things to MS but I believe failure is not one of them. The reason I believe this is because MS is not looking at this one console as defining their direction. Yes, MS had to change their expectations of the X1 after launch because of the wrong direction and marketing of the console. What MS has not done is gone in the red to gain marketshare. The division is healthy and it makes MS money. There is a focus direction on where the division wants to go and where MS wants to go with the brand and the hardware.

No the X1 is not going to ever make up the difference between it and the PS4 and I am sure MS has already gave up that battle. Instead its brand building time. Release solid hardware, release solid games carve out your services and build for the next iteration. Nothing is set in stone and from what I have seen, each company can stumble and next thing you know someone else is on Top.

Then that's not a failure. It's selling more than the 360 did but when Sony wins it sells multiples more and faster. If Sony sold peripherals like Microsoft I would shudder to think the astronomical numbers Sony would hit.