Launch is also not indicative of real demand. Or dont you remember Wii u and x1? As soon as the holiday craze ends we will see if they dint need exclusives. And considering outside of the US the series s was comonly available I say they where severly in need of some big games.

Pc matters mainly in regards to xbox as they share their library. For Nintendo it dosent matter cuz phones can be double the power of a switch but you can't get their games on said phone so you need a switch. The thing about laptops is that everyone has one and almpst everyone needs one specially after all this lockdowns. If people need a computer and get the bare minimum and that cannalready play games as good as a series s and had the games, what incentive is there to get a series s?frankly you would not, you would go to the next step up amd get a series x. Sadly this is something that will mainly affect xbox. 

They were, each better then the last. Revenue wise too. 

2017 introduced Game Pass, a little service that ended up being the best value in gaming. 15+ million on a 48 million instal base compared to PS Now 2+ million on a 115 million install base should explain enough. 

2018 saw the release of Sea of Thieves, State of Decay 2, and especially Forza Horizon 4. Games that are to this day supported with a more then active community. How many PS games from 2018 got updates in 2020 and how active are those communities? This is rhetorical.

2019 saw Gears 5 and Outer Worlds day 1 on Game Pass. Some great additions to the service as it rapidly grew. Day 1 first party access made the service rapidly grow. Xbox expanding its reach in the PC space. 

Also why dismiss Phil’s claims about being confident about spec superiority? They waited to get the full RDNA chipset, which is hurting them in the short term but should benefit them in the long. All ready seeing reversals like Dirt 5. 

(sorry mods, I do feel this response is warranted due to the low key false assertions)

I wouldn't call any of those years "the best years for Xbox" compared to the peak years of the 360.

Oh me too. Exclusive wise no but I’ve certainly played as many games this past 2 years as I have back in those days. Engagement is on a record rise and revenue generated by the division, which would make his statement technically true. 

I guess one's personal "best" is subjective but I think it would be extremely hard to a top a year like 2007 (Bioshock, Mass Effect, COD4, Halo 3, Portal, etc) or 2010. (Halo Reach, Mass Effect 2, Bayonetta, Vanquish, Alan Wake, Splinter Cell Conviction, Bioshock 2, NFS Hot Pursuit, Black Ops, etc.)

Financially though, was revenue in 2017/2018/2019 as high as 2010, 2011, or 2012?

The Xbox division has never been as succesful as it is now, which is the main reason Nadella trusts Spencer and promoted him to Vice President of Gaming at Microsoft in 2018 and also gave the division a huge budget increase that same year. So, at least financially and economically, 2020 has been the best year ever for Xbox.

Whether one likes the games they make or not is another matter entirely, but this is the objective data we have.

Thank you very much for sharing this graph, it immediatelly made me think that this was counter intuitive based on console sales, so I added to this graph the total consoles sold on each Fiscal year in order to see what that looks like:

As expected, console sales have gone down considerably while at the same time revenue has gone up a great deal. 

This brings a couple of questions to mind that hopefully we can discuss:

1) Is it realistic to think Game pass could be implemented on other consoles like Nintendo or PlayStation?

2) If Game pass is able to go to other Consoles, is there a reason to have an Xbox Console?

3) What does PlayStation and Nintendo revenue look like? Is Xbox showing the highest growth of the three main consoles?

I am confident it’s better then many assume.