Think this is a reasonable analysis of the situation.

Well, I'm not sure it was entirely to do with Game Pass, I think Microsoft just didn't want to wait for 10 or so years for a "maybe we'll improve our console situation" over the tried and proven profit sources. It is what it is, the CFOs won the battle. COD being exclusive of course like you said would make zero financial sense. AAA costs are too much, the small Xbox install-base. Console exclusivity limits their growth via acquisitions. Their Q1 Xbox hardware projections were ~600k IIRC...That's Wii U levels of bad.

They basically fire sale'd Xbox last holiday and still sold meh and under their expectations. Starfield barely provided a bump. Meanwhile look at how amazing Sea of Thieves for example sells on Steam, Xbox IP are often very strong sellers on Steam so it's not like these games don't have large consumer appeal, it's more than Xbox doesn't. It has hit a ceiling where coupled with the costs of AAA development, it's starting to make more sense to go more multiplatform. At least, that's what I think is happening.

I still think there are ways they could make Xbox hardware an option, and also ways they could garner developer support, but they would require drastic changes to both how Xbox creates their hardware and their entire financial system (I.E...Probably have to cut that 30% for developers down to like 15%) + Make the Xbox Store/Windows Store one unified store, something like making the Xbox hardware basically a PC which runs a Windows Gaming OS with an Xbox UI...Something like that, I'm spit balling ideas here but as I said they'd require huge changes.

As mentioned in this article, currently, Call of Duty 2025 (20 months from release) does not have an assigned main developer. It's my understanding that it was meant to be SHG, but following on from the 16-month development cycle of MW3, they basically refused and didn't want to…

— Tom Henderson (@_Tom_Henderson_) February 5, 2024

Infinity Ward are doing 2026, Sledgehammer is doing 2027.

He says he now expects 2025 to fall to Treyarch but honestly they should just have a year off then basically have a 1-year dev cycle CoD.

One thing I'm now fascinated by is the notion that, if MS has great success (profit-wise) of launching games on PS5, with Sony already admiting their business model is outdated compared to MS's, how long until Sony follows suit and releases brand new PS5 games on Series S/X?

In a couple years, PS5/NS2 players may be playing Halo and Xbox Series/NS2 users may be playing Spiderman. I would love this!

I've often wondered why MS didnt include a dual-boot option for the xbox consoles.
Allow them to run a full windows version, that you can boot into from the console OS.
So you could swap back and forth.

That would be another "check box" for console sales.
This isnt just a console, its also a desktop pc for your kid, that needs to do x,y,z school work ect ect.

Atleast I feel like that would be another, sales argument.

I honestly don't see that happending.
Lets say the gen ends 120m PS5 and 45m series X/S, if they do what you suggest.
Maybe not doing so, could result in a "why not just get a PS5, since it has everything" situation, that then has a beneficial effect on hardware sales.
Lets say that results in a further 5-10m console sales (hypothetically).

I could see Sony picking the extra hardware sales, over trying to win over xbox users, with playstation games.
Also sony has alot of old school mentality, set in their ways, type of people (alot of japanese elders), that probably wouldn't want to see this happending.

The reason MS are looking to other platforms is because of Xbox Hardware sales. If they were going to sell ~120m consoles like Sony/Nintendo this wouldn't be on the table. Sony can ignore 40-50m Xbox consoles a lot easier than Xbox can ignore 120m PlayStation consoles. So no I don't see Sony following suit. Simply because they have a lot more to lose and a lot less to gain from doing it than MS.

By the time Sony would maybe come to that decision, might not be a Xbox traditional console. 2030+ is my guess in if they would consider that. 

Sony seems like they value exclusivity as of now though. Don't see it happening in the next 5 years. 

I can't find his Twitter at all now, I can't remember what it was, but I wasn't following him so yeah he likely made it private after being harassed or something.

https://twitter.com/cowhand_fudca

Things can change, but PlayStation sells too many consoles to do this anytime soon.

Xbox is a gaming service division first, hardware second. PlayStation puts hardware first, services second. Yes, they bank on you buying software and services for their hardware. But they really want you to play PlayStation games on their hardware, not other consoles or PC. Even with more and more PlayStation games coming to PC, that remains unchanged. 

In theory yeah but the Halo community as an example Xbox + PC is way smaller than the halo community Xbox 360 days.

The Minecraft community on xbox isn't that happy either

Also in general most would not refer to you as an Xbox user but a PC user/PC gamer and you probably know yourself that a lot of Xbox console gamers in MP  did not like to play with PC gamers.  As a Fervent Gears player I was returned to the main menu countless time when some team mates saw the PC icon in the enemy team and left the game. At some point it became so bad that The Coallition turned the option to see if someone was a console player or PC player off.

In my opinion Xbox is the console that people invested in, their gamerscore their friends and so on, and why some like Klobrille and others saw a bright future, they realise now that it isn't that bright and I guess they feel devasted.  The Xbox ecosystem will probably die, MS at some point will probably stop with the hardware, gamerscore, friendslist, the games may continue but how can we be sure?