I do not believe the XBO X is going to be considered part of the Series X consoles. My guess is they will support XBO X and XBO S through 2021 with first party titles, and then it will be Series consoles only from then forward. With the CPU and SSD in the new Series consoles, I believe they will be supported much longer than XBO consoles though. 

The idea that the multiple specs of consoles is going to be bad, and hold back games is massively flawed. With games targeting 4K/30 or 4K/60 on the next gen consoles, there is massive room for much lower powered devices to run the same games at either 1080p or 1440p. Additionally, 3rd party games are always going to scale below and above consoles in all aspects regardless of how weak or powerful consoles are. As far as work load is concerned, supporting multiple devices running Chip Sets and API engineered and Optimized for scalability means very little work for devs. This is a non issue, and you can expect multiple specs/models from both Microsoft and Sony over the next generation.

Now as far as UI/OS go I am fully on board with you. I gave them both leeway this generation due to the move from PowerPC to x86. This time though, there is absolutely no reason the PS5 and Series X OS/UI should not meet and exceed PS4/XBO in all features and functions.

I don't think the intention with this reveal was to answer all questions. It is just to get the hype started, and let the design grow on people. Now they can move on to the specs in the 1st quarter, and then finish off by focusing on the games from Q2 until launch.

So they went from a VCR to an air purifier with the design, wow. Ugly things. Well, it's the inner beauty that matters, right?
But why would you bother with an Xbox anymore? It's built like a PC, all the games will be on PC and now it even looks like a PC. Why is this a necessary piece of equipment?

A Playstation is also like a PC (it will probably just look different) and except for the like 4 games from own studios every year of a few hundred games overall which release every year, you pretty much get the same as on PC or that next Xbox. And I'm not talking about third party games which may not release on PC since that can be the case for both consoles. 

Do we really argue how one console has in theory 300 games a year of whom 250 are also on PC and the other has 300 of whom 245 are on PC to make that huge difference to "that's why everyone needs a PS but not an Xbox in his living room"?

And what if the next PS will be much louder or will also have a "different and weird" look to cool down all that power as silent as possible? 

I understand if someone believes it won't fit in his TV rack and to have it not in the rack isn't the best but why would anyone prefer a different design if it would lessen the gaming experience with louder noise? 

As others have stated, simplicity and ease of use. Consoles deliver an optimized experience, built to work flawlessly on TV's. There is a huge market of people that just want to be able to plug a device into their TV, pick up a controller and start playing. Even in today's PC enviornment, it is still just not that simple. HDR on Windows is not implemented nicely, games still run into random issues, and with all the launchers it has becoming more cumbersome. 

I tried diving back into the PC space again this year. Bought a new PC with Ryzen, NVMe, and a RTX2080. Also bought an RX 5700 XT. I put the RTX in my i7-4770K desktop I bought before PS4/XBO launched, and put the 5700 into my new Ryzen PC to have an all AMD set up. It has not been smooth sailing on either device.

Forza Horizon 4 gave me hope becasue it played great on the i7-4770K unit with a GTX680. Gears of War 4 struggled a bit, but then worked great with the new Tower, and GPU's. Then Crackdown 3 worked great on both systems. However things began to fall aprt after that. Gears 5 is crashing on both systems regaurdless of stettings. Keeps freezing at load points no matter how low I set the Reslotuion or how little RAM I am using. I can bench it at 1080p and well over 60fps, and it still crashes. Then the new Halo Reach came, and it won't start on my AMD system due to an AMD DVR .dll file. Though it is working perfectly fine on the Intel/Nvidia unit. I have also had issues with Dolby Atmos on both PC's. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. 

Non of these issues have occured on the XBO X. All of the games run fine, with only the rarest of crashes. I have never had an issue with Dolby Atmos on the XBO either. For that reason I will be grabbing an Xbox Series X at launch to play Halo Infinite without any headaches. Ideally going forward, I would love to see consoles receive yearly updates, that allow them to perform with the best AMD has to offer in the PC market. Sometimes Optimization and Stability are the biggest selling points. 

Games being available on PC is nothing new. You could play Space Harrier on a Sega Master System, and play it in DOS. And yet console gaming is now and remains it's own thing. If a game is or is not available on PC is 100% irrelevant. 

It's built like a PC? The Sega Genesis used a Motorola 68000 16-bit CPU, the same used CPU in several PC's. It's just silicon and has nothing to do with end product. The design is likely purely industrial. Simplicity is cost effective and easier to manufacture. Having a voluminous interior likely contributes to more efficient cooling. Meaning the design facilitates a purpose of engineering rather than aesthetics are a priority and then designing the technology around it after.

I'm hoping the next gen systems embrace mods more. I'm not a PC gamer but that's one aspect of PC gaming that I've always been jealous of. Consoles have done it in the past with a handful of games. Now it's time to blow the doors open.

Limited customization for consoles are a good thing because there is less cheating. I can't even enter a game of CSGO without a hacker.

With all that said, I am more interested in Xcloud.

Look at the fridge again. It sucks in air at the bottom and blows it out on top. Best design for cooling it as hot air rises anyways. Now there is a disc drive slot which has to be on the front somewhere, obviously.

So there are two ways to place the fridge: Either upside or sideways, disc drive either along the top OR bottom edge (depending on how the drive is installed in the fridge). Placing the fridge upside is not an option as it is too tall.

TV enclosures always expect air to be blown out the back, so the walls are on the sides. Placing the fridge sideways means that air is sucked in and blown out sideways where the tv enclosure walls are. Bad idea, unless you have an unusually wide tv enclosure, but most of these thingies are made to enclose standard width hifi equipment.

Yea, I wouldn't be able to stick it in my stand.  It's too high for my first shelf.  The 2nd shelf that houses my Pro at the moment might be able to take the height, but the width will be a problem, as it is a little wider than the Pro.  Too much to one side and it hinders the air coming in.  To much to the other and all the heat stays near the console itself. 

I really think this is the "hot" product Jason Schreier said it was.  In order to combat the resent news that some devs weren't happy with how behind MS was with getting the Scarlett info/devkits to them, they wanted something to try to show that they weren't behind.  So, you got Phil saying he has one at home already and is playing on it.  And you have the sudden Game Awards announcement (kind of an odd place to announce a console) where they just went with the design that they had at the moment without really thinking it through.  I mean, this would work fine if you just sit your consoles next to your TV in your bedroom, but not in quite a few TV stands that are going to be in the living room.  The PS5, if its like the devkit, will have no problem.  Sucks in air from top center and blows it out the side towards the back.  Almost like a hot rod.

i dont see how it is to combat recent news, seeing as its about damn time some info was released for a product with release in 2020