The Xbox One fell below Microsoft's expectations in sales. 50 million lifetime is a lock at this point, but that's much less than the Xbox 360. But my question is how would the 8th and 9th gen of gaming be affected if Xbox One didn't reverse any of its maligned policies? The console would launch with mandatory DRM, always online, forced Kinect, etc. 

Would the Xbox One fail as hard as the Wii U in this situation? Possibly. The Xbox One would be lucky to sell as much as the original Xbox. Consumers would buy other consoles instead, and I even think the Wii U would be affected enough to sell at least 15 million in its lifetime (still would be a failure).

There's almost no situation where we would get an Xbox One X. The demand for the Xbox One in general would not be high enough. I say that we would already get the Xbox Series X in 2018, albeit with some weaker specs than in reality. I think Sony would release the PS5 in 2019 instead of 2020, not wanting to be undercut by Microsoft. The Switch still launches in March 2017, and I think that would fully end the debate if it's 8th or 9th gen. I mean with Microsoft and Sony having both their products out in the next few years, Switch would clearly be 9th gen.

Alternatively, could this be enough to get Microsoft out of the hardware business for good? Another possibility. 

Microsoft certainly made the right call to reverse some policies of the Xbox One, and to add 4K Blu-ray and backwards compatibility later on.

I wouldn't have bought one, that's for sure.

Arent they focusing on subcription services and streaming now? Wich by default require drm? So their strategy dint change much, they just diled it back but still pursuing it.

30 million fewer consoles sold. Might sell as bad as Wii U did.

Probably something like this.

Want offline? Get our outdated 360.
Want game sharing? Get our outdated 360.
Want cheap console only SKU? Get our outdated 360.

Just one was bad enough. This would've been three strikes you're out.

In the end, a lot of us wound up going full digital and GameStop is dying so whether they changed or not, the world is going the way they planned anyway. They just said it in a way that pissed everyone off.

DRM was bad PR that the media latched onto but there were other issues that combined to kill them this gen. The lack of power, the focus on multimedia features, Kinect 2.0, media attacking the controller (saying it was worse when it was really muuuuch better), lackluster exclusives, etc. It was just a shitstorm. I don't think much would have changed.

Really depends. Supposedly, they had some online gamesharing features beyond what they announced which may have helped soften the blow...

I think it was as much of a failure of markeitng as it was a failure in design. Their attitude was essentially it's not a problem, and if you think it's a problem, you're wrong and fuck you.

If they would have approached it as "yeah, there are some inconveniences, but here are the positives (assuming there were some)" maybe it could have worked. But I honestly think there were far bigger problems with the XBox One launch campaign.

It would have only PS5 and Switch

Xbox One would have gotten curb-stomped by Sony and Nintendo.