Of course it wasn't successful, Microsoft gained a lot of market with the 360, they also stapled their xbox brand name in gamers mouths, they ruined all that with the One. If they had done it right, they could be right now 50/50 with sony.

I really don't think we should judge success purely by Profit. If that's how you want to define it in this context then cool case closed. By that logic though Sony Xperia phones are "successful". I also don't think that they managed to retain a significant chunk of their following. Its been quite a drastic loss in comparison to X360.

They definitely would have been aiming to dominate the market with the 360 brand being strong amongst core gamers and the Kinect doing really well with the casuals. They had all the ingredients to dominate - I dont see why they wouldnt target to expand their customer base or at the very least maintain what they had? 

I agree with a lot of the bolded, but that speaks more to the success of MS in moving the brand forward despite the Xbox One failure. 

Edit: I mean its even evident in the post Xbox One strategies employed by MS whereby little emphasis is placed on the hardware, circumventing the need to even have a successful console at all.

Something I'll add to the discussion is how big the Xbox One bombed in Japan. Now Japan has always been not much of a factor for Xbox. Xbox One sits at a lifetime 0.12 million hardware units in Japan. Xbox Series S/X is already at 0.10 million hardware units in Japan. The Series is all but guaranteed to pass the original Xbox in Japan, and might give the 360 a run for its money (we'll see).

While this doesn't make the Xbox One a failure as a whole, it highlights how epic of a failure it was in Japan. Even the original Xbox which sold about half worldwide of what the Xbox One did still managed to get around 0.5 million units sold in Japan.

it seems that GamePass is really helping Xbox in Japan.

An objective failure, no question.

Just assume what very well might have occurred if MS never entered the console space, or if they did and only ever managed OG XB level sales each gen.

PS3 sales would have very likely landed beyond 100 mil even with all it's problems. SNY had plans way back then of an all encompassing ecosystem like Apple, Samsung, etc, have now, where Cell was in all SNY products.

In this case, you can bet MS saw this coming long ago, before even PS2, and at the very least, wanted 'their slice' of this with Windows, which was never going to happen with SNY then. Just look at PS3 already touching on Linux.

If you're MS, do you really want to potentially allow SNY to grow enough in the tech space and either use a competitors/non Windows OS/software, or perhaps even let SNY make their own for their all encompassing ecosystem?

How long before PS4 or PS5 was basically an affordable media PC with a non Windows full OS? 200 mil sales? 500 mil sales? 1 bil sales?

It would be way way smarter to start a console brand and toss a few billion at it every year to simply keep SNY in check. If you could eventually grow it and make seriously good use of it for MS overall then sure, get more serious about it, but if not, it would serve it's purpose regardless.

I believe its certainly possible MS saw Sony as a threat if they could grow unchecked. But I also think its an industry MS wanted its foot in. It wasn't entirely new ground for MS given Windows was a popular gaming platform and they produced content. Yet it was still a different market than MS was in.

MS did approach SNY and Nin to partner with an offer of Windows and Online before OG XB did they not? I believe the plan was to let SNY or Nin remain taking care of the gaming hardware and software while MS only focused on the user connections and experience. Based on this the number 1 goal for MS was to protect and expand Windows first and foremost.

I agree that since MS almost certainly anticipated a future where SNY/PS expands so greatly that it starts cutting significantly into Windows profits, that they figured if that much growth took place, a Direct X console could potentially be quite profitable eventually. Even if it wasn't, to just break even or lose a few billion every year would be fine, because it would mean nothing to MS overall, while keeping SNY in check, as Windows kept printing more and more money.

This would mean that so far, every XB has been a success as per MS.

WinCE was the OS for Dreamcast. MS also had a gaming system in Japan in the 80s with the MSX. The system where the Metal Gear series began.

That's exactly what the mind set of MS feels like half way though the XB1 life cycle. Its their to keep the industry in check. Its not about outselling PS or Nintendo. Its a growth option that allows customers to game on a windows type device without needing a PC. It explains why MS opted to go with Sega with a modified Windows OS since both Sony and Nintendo said no. When Sega left the console hardware market, it basically pushed MS to have their own in house console to continue what Sega tried to do, push DX and Windows in the gaming world.

It didn't succeed compared to XB360 in sales numbers, but for wrong MS strategies, not due to flaws.
OTOH it was successful on the path of making consoles with a x86 PC architecture, making devs lives easier and PC-console multiplats easier to make too. PS4 did it too, but while Sony can do it just to make devs and gamers happier, MS has more interest in keeping Windows PC gaming relevant and with its unified gaming environment and premium services is trying to earn money directly from the PC part too instead of just reaping the indirect benefits of helping keeping Windows relevant, powerful and lucrative. On this thing it looks like XS and Game Pass refined MS strategies a lot and will be more successful, but it was XBOne that paved their way.
Finally, XB360 flaws cost MS a lot of money and eventually losing its head start and ending third the gen by a whisker, XBOne flaws cost less, and after a very bad start due to MS marketing disasters, it did a good job recovering through its life and selling a decent amount of units, ending second, although with a far larger gap than XB360 from second and first, but saving the whole XB family and gaming environment from becoming irrelevant.