No, m$ don't need hardware, they need to go back to what they were before which is 3rd party

I honestly feel Microsoft needed to play it perfect to actually compete with sony and they had the chance with the ps3 being a mess of a system and actually did great but after that they actually made bigger  ps3 like mistake with xbox one being much weaker and being more expensive for kinect, then also trying to lock games to online only it was wrap that gen along with sony making much better exclusives and Microsoft making all games on PC day one they literally killed the brand.    

Thats an assumption. N64 had the best 1st party games of its generation by a landslide and only sold 1/3 of the PS1. GameCube was also noted for having amazing 1st party games. Quality isn't the reason to sell, its marketing and perception. You can sell crap to people if you market it extremely well. Unfortunately for this industry, Xbox has run its race, it's only a matter of time before they pull out. 

Oh Don, tell us you hate MS without telling us you hate MS. The fact you are literally trying to defend Lurker says enough. 

First Point: Exactly, people vote with their wallets, you don't need inflated competition for that.

Second Point: Your list of companies says otherwise. Its never been the same 3 companies from the beginning of the console hardware market. That shows hardware companies cannot sustain or care and drop out of hardware over time. Example: Sega lasted 4 generations before dropping out, Xbox is on their 4th gen now, and rumors are strong of them going third party. 

Also to correct you, PS3 lost $5b and 360 lost $3b

Xbox 360 and PS3 losses total $8 billion, ex-Sony employee paints grim future | VG247

That was at a time when competition was at its strongest. When all 3 do well, the industry struggled. The industry is only big enough for 2 successful consoles while the 3rd stays a distance 3rd and investors and shareholders see no purpose staying invested, which is why we continue hearing Xbox going third party since the XB1 era. They may be profiable with the XB1 and XSS/XSX, but it's not enough to keep the suits interested.

Let me answer your 4 points,

1) N64, GameCube, WiiU, DreamCast, Xbox all had amazing games, and they were nowhere near the market leader. So no, great exclusives arent enough to sell consoles.

2) Higher Pricing? It's the same price as its competitors, if anything Xbox has cheaper alternatives like GamePass and the Series S.

3) Naming has nothing to do with sales, the average consumer does not care.

4) Removing of Physical games has only just been rumored, Xbox hasn't been selling well since the XB1 which offered physical games and it's the same as this gen.

Tell me why you are defending Xbox walking out of the hardware market? There is more than enough competition to keep companies humble, and like you mentioned before, Steam competes as well. What are the advantages of Xbox staying in aside from dividing an audience. 

My opinion, I want to see the gaming industry become a 1 box plays all like how PC operate. None of these sealed hardware consoles forcing people to buy them to play some games and divides the players and friends. Gaming should be like the movie industry where any DvD, Blu-Ray and 4k player can play any movie aslong as its compatible. (ie: 4k disks don't work in a DvD drive) 

Companies shouldn't be moneyhatting games to force people to buy a box they don't want. These companies should instead be trying to make the best hardware you can buy to convince customers to buy them over the other brands. Locking content is the cheap way of avoiding building good hardware. Thats just my opinion.  

5) Lack of focus on markets outsides of the US. (sub/dub and quality of translations, marketing, support (if theres hardware/user issues)

6) Day and Date games, to PC (it has to have cost them atleast a few console sales)

7) Gamepass has conditioned users to wait for games to come to gamepass, and not buy them.
      (total gamepass subs, then limits how many games the system can then have and be successfull there)

8) Buying massive publishers like EA/Activision, where they make alot of their money on other platforms (not xbox). 
    You dont spend $80-100 bn, only to see these bussiness shrink, and their profits collapse. So this basically forces them to go 3rd party.

(Im assumeing by imploding, you mean them perphaps transitioning to be less dependent on the xbox console, and going 3rd party with games)
The consoles (and gamepass) just arnt selling enough, to support them as they are now (with all these dev studios/publishers).

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On a side note.
Yes Steam and PC gameing, are competition for Sony, as are Nintendo.
If Sony goes nuts, or greedy, it will push people away as well.

The world isnt ending, if xbox leaves hardware... which it probably wont anytime soon.
Next gen, it might just be a PC with a console OS, sold from 3rd party sellers.

Back to the conversation about Xbox leaving the console market, it might seem surprising at first with Xbox being relatively iconic and a household name that they would want to leave the console market, especially when their past 2 consoles sold relatively well with 50M+, when you look at their history in detail it wouldn't be so suprising to see why Microsoft would want to leave the console market, Xbox the past 4 generations always been trying to just stay afloat in a war that they'll always lose to PS unless PS just hands them the victory.
First off, the main reason why Microsoft got into the console market in the first place is cause they were scared of the PS2 & future Playstations taking over the living room as a multimedia device that could play DVDs/CDs, browse the web and potentially replace the need for a Windows desktop PC, but now it's clear that consoles will never replace PCs in their functions so Microsoft really doesn't need to worry about consoles replacing their PC anymore to keep making consoles.
Even if they want to stick to consoles for profit, they haven't done a pretty terrible job at it all these generations and in reality always been in a losing battle losing billions just to keep up with PS. While the Xbox sales wise was considered a pretty decent success by being able to outsell the GC and put even a small fight against the PS2 with 24M sold, Microsoft would end up losing 4$Billion that generation taking heavy losses on the hardware, marketing, and money-hatting developers just to sell that small of a number of units, any other company would've folded under those losses but Microsoft's high cash is what kept them afloat.
While the Xbox 360 was considered a big success sales wise selling 85M and went toe-to-toe with PS, tbh I feel like the Xbox sold that well more-so cause of Sony screwing up hard rather than people who truly preferred Xbox, and wasn't a sustainable amount of success for the long term. It seems like gen after gen Microsoft just fails to attract the European & Japan markets as much as PS which makes it difficult for them to compete. Despite the PS3 screwing up so hard selling at 800+$ in 2024 inflation standards at launch, having worse online, worse performing multiplats, launched a year later, launched with less must have exclusives like Halo 3, and not having a popular gimmick like the Kinect behind a huge marketing budget, the PS3 was still able to outsell the 360 where the PS3 was able to win it in Europe & Japan despite all it had against it.
But even though the Xbox 360 was a big success sales wise, Microsoft STILL ended up being unprofitable that gen mainly cause of the RROD situation which costed Micrsoft billions to fix to the point where the Xbox 360 wasn't able to recover when it comes to profit.

Now when it comes to the Xbox One, people think that the Kinect, anti-consumer policies, and 100$+ more expensive than the PS4 lost them that gen, and while it did contribute to it, they were bound to lose the gen anyways. Even when Microsoft took away those policies, offered cheaper prices, and a more appealing and powerful console options and redesigns later that gen it did very little to change the tide, which were very similiar things Sony did with the PS3 and PS3 was able to comeback alot better mainly cause Sony always was the favorite in Europe & Japan while Xbox was always in an endless uphill battle just to stay afloat.

I imagine that trying to stay afloat like this with Sony in the console space likely had been expensive for them, since the Xbox One gen they've typically always given more discounts on their hardware taking more and more losses on the hardware just to sell decent, and along with developing games with a limited install base on the Xbox One, may be more detrimental than we may think behind the scenes.
We've already recently seen the Sony/Insomniac leaks where despite the fact that PS is doing crazy successful with the PS4 selling 100M+ and the PS5 on its way to do so as well, Sony is still struggling to maximize their profit at times with certain big games like Rachet & Clank losing money and other titles not meeting profit hopes, forcing lay-offs and Sony to port their exclusives to PC to stay profitable, imagine that with Microsoft with a console install base that's less than half of PS and a company that naturally spends more money than they need too. It's hard to say if this is happening cause Microsoft never reports on profit for their Xbox division, but the fact that they seem to be leaning away from pushing console sales these past few years makes me believe that the console business for them hasn't been great in terms of their profitability hopes.

It's coming to the point where Microsoft was pricing the Xbox Series S at 150$ this past holiday season which is wild to see for a next-gen console in their 3rd year to have a price that low and still get demolished by PS in sales. Even Phil Spencer given quotes as of recent that just seems discouraging on the future of Xbox, even going as far as admitting that even if they release great games wouldn't change the tide for Xbox, it just feels like they have no purpose to compete in console sales when it may be holding them back by taking on losses on hardware and marketing just to sell decently compared to Sony and the Xbox install base isn't big enough for their 1st party sales to be much more profitable compared to just releasing all their software as a 3rd party developer.

Yep, that was wild.
Holidays 2023, the series S was 149$ and the series X was 349$, both much lower in price than the PS5 at the time.
However NPD comes out, and you find Xbox is 3rd both in revenue and units sold. In its strongest market, the US.

Places like spain and some other european countries its being outsold like 9 to 1.

"Even Phil Spencer given quotes as of recent that just seems discouraging on the future of Xbox, even going as far as admitting that even if they release great games wouldn't change the tide for Xbox,..."

This is the main thing I disagree with, from Phil.
If you keep a good trackrecord of constantly releaseing bangers..... it will boost sales and ultimately effect things (ei. change the tide).
The thing is they havn't for a very long time, consumer trust is broken.

Games and their quality, has been a huge issue for xbox for along time.
If your trying to sell a gameconsole, thats just not a good fit.

You only know if you need something until its gone.  You have no clue how the market would change if MS does not have a competitive console.  One thing for sure is that you can believe all mega corporations will take full advantage of it so yes if you believe that Sony would sell at a loss their next system if MS is gone, you are deluding yourself.  Its not just the consumers that lose out its also the devs and other studios.  Fees go up, hell everything goes up because you just do not have to worry about competition.  No one knows what happens if MS leave and no one knows what will happen if MS goes limited multiplat which if you think about it they already operate in that fashion especially with ABK.  What determine success today is not always what you believe you know because you only live in the moment.

Naw, console gamers are console gamers for a reason.  If anything, Sony will just slowing increase license deals, services cost and other things.  By the time you realize it you are already use to paying it.  There is never a hurry to increase on all fronts just because your main competition leaves.

You will get old Sony back you can believe that but they will be much smarter how they go about it.