Even if Microsoft made all their first party games exclusive it won't overcome PS5 sales or make them that much more competitive unless they make COD and Minecraft exclusive. MS first party games have been scoring well this generation minus red fall.

Playstation and Xbox consoles has always been about third party games. Without third party, none of these consoles would exist. Hardly any of their first party games ever charts and if it does it is for a short while. 

Buying both Xbox and Playstation consoles together was never that popular to begin with despite what you see in the forums. PC gaming is growing and taking both Xbox and Playstation sales away. That is why even Sony is taking the third party approach and releasing their games everywhere.

As a consumer, Xbox series consoles provided me more value than any playstation or any console for that matter in the past thanks to game pass. If a game is on game pass day 1 why pay 60 - 80 dollars when I can pay 10 extra dollars on top of an xbox live / PSN subscription?

Much more enticing than playstation timed exclusive strategy. So there is value in Xbox thanks to Phil Spencer but most Playstation owners play GAAS so it won't matter to them. Also, Xbox wouldn't be here probably without Phil Spencer because there were a lot of rumors that MS was going to sell off xbox and discontinue it. Phil Spencer convince MS leadership to keep Xbox around.

Except, it is not an excuse. You are comparing apples and oranges. Nintendo is definitely not in the same boat. Mario, Zelda, etc will ALWAYS make Nintendo relevant, even if they have a bad generation; people who got crazy about the Wii simply waited the next gen. Not to mention the Switch and the portability which makes it a completely different beast all together. That's not at all the same story.

Same goes for the PS3 and Xbox 360. A "significant lead"... What are you talking about, there is a big difference between having one console coming out a year later but with people waiting for it and 70% of the marketshare with a console (the Xbox One gen) that was completely under-performing the other one and nobody looking forward for the next one and again, comparing apples and oranges. 

The ecosystem and the domino effect of the Play Station 4 is the main reasons why Xbox could not come back from the Xbox One debacle. 70% of the people wanting a home console during the last generation went for a PlayStation 4 and for good reasons, if you really believe that it was almost impossible for Xbox to come back after that with a console and offering that was basically similar to the Play Station 5, you are delusional. Why on earth would anyone who invested so much in Sony's ecosystem switch for Xbox when the offering was basically the same on both side? This is simple logic. How can you even argue against that is beyond me. 

And how Mattrick leaving by himself after screwing up is making things EVEN worse for Spencer? Can you enlighten me here... I get that you seem to really dislike the guy (Spencer) but come on, this makes no sense.

Don for sure. Don killed the brand while it was on the up and up. Phil took over when it was basically too late. Phil certainly made some choices I'm not a fan of, but he is the reason the Xbox brand is even still around. Phil has done some great things to strengthen the brand. Satya would have shut it down last gen if not for Phil pushing Game Pass. Xbox would have likely shut down again if the ABK deal didn't go through based on has information out there.

Don abandoned ship right away when things got a messy. Phil stuck with Xbox and made necessary decisions to keep it alive.

It matters not, this question. Shuhei Yoshida fired pebble that festered into a fatal wound.

Now, PS5 has games that do the very thing PS4 mocked MS for. It launched with one. Godfall requires online for a SP game, and now all Ubisoft games require it. 

Vita and 3ds were in the "handheld" category on this website so I really don't know why your bringing those up. The Switch is not in the "handheld" category because it's both a handheld and a "console". It can function as a "traditional console" when in the dock so it is classified as one on this website.  It's funny because I've never seen you arguing with the Nintendo fans before claiming that it's not a console, only now I've seen it. 

Because that was the other category to place it in and as I said the console category made more sense since the handheld one was becoming irrelevant, people were naturally way more interested in seeing how it would perform compared to the PS4 and Xbox One than the Vita and 3DS. How it's classified here has zero bearing on it being a traditional console or not. It's objectively not a traditional one since a hybrid sort of device clearly isn't that. And I actually have argued this sort of point before with at least one Nintendo fan. 

Also do you really not see how the bolded could apply both ways and thus means nothing? "The Switch is not in the console category because it's both a console and a handheld. It can function as a handheld when not in the dock so it is classified as one on this website." would be just as silly and meaningless of a statement if it was in the handheld category.

Actually, I've realised I don't even need to talk about the Switch. I think that by the time GTA 6 launches Xbox will be so dead and gone that PS5 will get practically all the sales boost from GTA6 launch. It will then become clear that the traditional console sales model is not dead and doing just fine. 

Replying to what's in bold - yes I know that's why I put "console" and "traditional console" in quotation marks. I don't consider it a console at all and only a handheld that can be played on a TV

Who has said it's dead? What was said is that they're not selling as well as they used to and that PC has been taking more sales from that market which are just observable facts. It'll keep doing fine for now though somewhat declining but I do think things could get tricky for that market next decade since Xbox has massively shifted focus away from selling hardware so future Xbox devices should sell even less and the PS6 could be a bit of a tough sell considering how much it'll likely cost, how long the PS5 will keep keeping most big games for, that it won't get its own GTA game and how much people under 20 prefer PC over traditional console nowadays.

And in that case just say what you actually believe from the get go. Like for me I think of it partly as a console but mainly a handheld device. You don't have to go along with how it's categorized here even putting aside that there was a good reason why that happened.

Playstation games constantly chart, what are you even talking about? Their past couple of years have been relatively weak because their output itself has been poor. They're just not making enough game due in part to their GaaS initiative.

Microsoft isn't adding any value to "Xbox", all they're doing is transitioning a platform into a glorified sticker (plus GamePass I guess which doesn't require Xbox lol) and you're celebrating it. Their current software is in a league of its own popularity wise. They can easily make Xbox a relevant platform again if they wish to. It's not just CoD and Minecraft, that's almost like saying Nintendo is just Mario and Pokemon.

The majority of Playstation gamers supposedly playing GaaS doesn't change the fact that their consoles are selling like 300 million software annually, which doesn't take into account F2P, microtransactions, and services. Playstation remains a huge platform. The only reason Sony is supporting PC and other platforms is greed/expansionism. They seem to think they can keep the Playstation brand strong forever without true exclusivity, I think reality will bite them in the ass eventually.