In a vaccuum? No.  They never filled SEGA's shoes in great IP's and innovation even tho they borrowed directly from them with the controller with the OG Xbox. That said no one else can keep Sony on their toes in the power race with consoles.  I'd been happy if it was just SEGA,Nintendo and Neo Geo still making consoles.

Its not MS's problem to keep Sony in check. If you cant trust Sony than don't support them. Simple.

Incorrect thinking. GP as it is no. A modified GP supporting only Xbox 1st party titles? Possibly. If not MS will still pursue GP via PC and Mobile etc. They can also sell their games on PS separately from GP as a source of income. 

Thats not MS's problem.

Again, thats not MS's problem.

Then they won't put GP on their consoles and just sell software separately or create a modified GP library that includes only Xbox titles, just like how EA Play works.

Who said they are stopping? They have studios to make software, they don't need dedicated hardware to sell it.

Again, not MS's problem.

Again, not MS's problem.

Again, not MS's problem.

Nothing is going to change. Least selling consoles always struggle to stay competitive. Did you forgot what happened to Sega? To stay in the console hardware business they need to be selling similar to Nintendo and PS and the market is too small for 3 to be selling that well.

Not MS's problem to keep PS in check. 

Again, it's not MS's problem to keep Sony in check.

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I took my time reading all these replies, it comes to no Suprise that people only want Xbox to exist to keep Sony in Check... Reality, it's not MS's problem or responsibility to do so. They are not a charity and are not willing to lose Billions on hardware just for this. It's not justifiable to any business. I mentioned this point in my main post (If those bothered actually reading it). If you cannot trust a company, you support, then don't support them. It's that simple.

If you want a brand to be around and stay relevant than you need to support it. The hypocritical statements coming from many of you is insane. You don't want to support Xbox, you don't care how successful they are, you just want to see them keep a company that apparently you don't trust in check? That is some mental gymnastics and a mentality I cannot understand exists.

If you know your wife or husband will cheat on you the moment you lower your guard, then sorry to say, you are in a unhealthy relationship and probably not best waiting around for it to happen.

Complain that people don't bother reading his main post, then blatantly misread mine...

Nowhere in my brief post do I mention Sony.

Microsoft's Xbox initiatives provide competition to lots of companies. If I think that more competition benefits everyone (in your strange terminology - if I don't trust them without competition) then I just shouldn't support anyone in the industry then according to your silly made up platitude?

Heck, maybe the reason why I don't support Microsoft is because I don't trust them. Are you happy now?

Thank goodness Azz has come to MS rescue! Competitions job is to keep competition honest. You think PS4 and Sony come out praising used games and a $400 price tag if MS doesn't fuck up? Any billion dollar corp would take full advantage of consumers if they have no competition.

For me. 360 was the last console MS made that was interesting. They have done such a poor job making games that are that interesting and a piss poor job having consitent releases at all in the past decade.

Have you, perhaps, stopped to wonder why you're having to repeat this? I personally suspect it might just have something to do with the title of this thread saying 'Do we really need Xbox?', which is us-centric instead of MS-centric.

Anyway, we need Xbox to keep competition healthy, but that's not a real need.

We don't need Xbox nor does Microsoft to begin with Xbox is a miniscule part of Microsoft. If Microsoft thinks they are more profitable in gaming without third party revenue all the more power to them. No way in hell the Microsoft Store will become remotely as popular as Steam.

Some of their partners like AMD won't be happy about it though. Also Microsoft has stated multiple times they will keep making Xbox consoles and designing consoles doesn't really cost that much these days.

It's not our problem MS cannot release good games. If their games were good I would buy them. Their only purpose so far is to prevent Sony charging 800 USD for a PS5 and forcing Sony to keep releasing good first party games 

Except by a few JP AAA I cannot find elsewhere (and by few I really mean it, cannot think a game other than FF 16) everything else barring Sony own IPs is on Xbox or Switch. I still prefer PS5 nonetheless, because Sony first party is gold

Sony first party output uses to be mediocre, and they learned from their mistakes during 7th gen and has been release GOTY material bangers almost of yearly basis 

Sony has been decimating Xbox for a good 10 years already and Xbox software output still as bad as bad as ever.

When have MS release something remotely close to Ghost of Tsushima, The Last of Us, Spider Man, Horizon, God of War, Demon Souls, Bloodborne... ? Seems like it's a good console for people who enjoys shooters and that's about it. Where are their investment to make JRPGS viable? 

Edit: They released Ori, awesome game. However their schedule calendar do not help their case here. If games that run with low specs are day one PC releases then I don't have reason to invest 260 USD in a Series S

Right now they have tons of studios. Make them work and MS shall be fine

If they do not have interest in making quality games or just lack the talent then that's their problem. Exit gaming market altogether and leave third party studios alone. We will be better without Microsoft enterily 

Is Xbox needed? No, console gaming existed before Xbox and can do fine without Xbox if for whatever reason MS decided to leave. Hard to say if Sony and/or Nintendo would allow GamePass onto their platforms. I could see Nintendo being more open to the idea simply due to them not needing 3rd party games to be successful, Sony on the other hand would probably be more against the idea.

Regardless, I don't think MS is planning to leave console gaming anytime soon. I'm not sure why they would buy all these studios just to give up a handful of years later. We'll see another Xbox console after the Series X/S (beyond that, who could say).

I mean you have literal proof of what happens when Sony has no direct competition ... the PS5 got a price raise in every market region basically did it not?

Which region did they not raise the price in? The US market. Why didn't they raise the price in the US market? Because that's the one market the XBox is the strongest competition for them, they didn't want to raise the price in the US because they knew that it could help the XBox. Sony knows they have to price competitively in the US market because it's the market XBox is strongest against the Playstation globally. 

So you can wax poetic about MS going away all you want Sony fans, but those of you in the US should also know this plainly -- if there was no XBox, your ass is paying an extra $50-$100 for your Playstation 5 hardware.

That's what happens when there is no direct competitor.

Maybe not, but we're talking about Microsoft which is throwing around billions of dollars quite casually. So as long as they see even the slightest benefit from Xbox in the future, they don't even care about those losses. Neither do the shareholders, who are only looking at cloud businesses and AI.

Xbox isn't going anywhere. You can argue all day about it being needed or not. But for it to disappear the gaming business itself would need to take a major hit or Xbox would have to become as irrelevant as Windows Phone once was. I don't see any of that happening any time soon.