If it had kept with its 2005-pre-Kinect vision, I suspect it would have fared far better in the market. But regardless, the consumer base was shifting. By the time the PS4 had launched, core gaming had become less frat-boy, less "dude bro". It was transitioning away from the sorts of games Xbox was known for and were great at, so I'm not sure sticking with the 360 way of doing things would have allowed them to continue their dominance. If you look at where gaming headed, can you imagine Gears or Halo dominating over games like BOTW or Expedition 33? I just don't see the market for it anymore. Even COD, a staple for the 360 brand and the "bro" market has been relegated to the shadows of gaming culture. We're more D&D again. More reminiscent of the SNES/Genesis era than we are the 360 era, so again, I don't think better Xbox One messaging would have made a huge difference. But it sure would have made "a" difference, and they sure as heck would have been in a better spot than they currently are.

I think mandatory Kinect was the biggest mistake they made with it, overall. I remember this being discussed on the forums at the time, there was a small handful who saw Kinect as the second coming, but the majority thought it was a complete waste. The PR-mistakes before launch were smaller issues, especially since they backed out of it, in keeping with the times as most publishers were already letting region-locks go.

A lower entry price and more focus on traditional games rather than knock-off software to sell the Kinect-concept would have gone a long way. It could have built more on what the 360 did, and all that without those dire hardware-failure rates. On top of all else, it was a decent 4k blu-ray player (this is mainly why I bought my One S), where the PS4 didn't even play 4k blu-ray.

I would argue Xbox did follow this shift, as games like say Gears 4/5 or Halo 5 seem less "dudebro" than their 360 incarnations, with a lot of the "edge" toned down in Gears and both aiming for a broader demographic. (Not so successfully though it turns out)

Gears 4 and 5 esp 4 writing is very much that MCU era overly self aware shit. Why I hate Del. He whines all the time then makes those dumb MCU like observations. I legit hate his character and killed him in 5. 5s writing is a little better but still not great. I like 4 a lot as a game. 5 when just playing Gears it's fine but the open area ruined the pacing. I think there is a reason some Gears fans like myself took to Space Marine 2's tone. It's not exact but it felt closer to classic Gears than Gears has in over a decade. Hoping E-Day returns to the older tone.

Yeah I really don't like that MCU style of writing that took over nearly everything in the 2010s, it's so cringe, give me the edginess of the 360 era any day over that shit.

Without all the PR blunders and forced bundling of Kinect and MS just focused on making a regular $400 console, I really do think it would have retained most of its momentum from the prior generation. The PS4 may have regained some lost market share simply be being price competitive and having Sony's best (or at least most popular) roster of exclusives of any of their systems at that point, but the XBO would have likely won in the U.S. by a comfortable amount, possibly a reverse of the final totals we actually had, and it would still have been closer globally. Instead of only 58M it could have cleared 70M globally, with at least half that from just the U.S.

Probably only slightly behind the PS4.
It would likely have been akin to the Xbox360/PS3 gen..... maybe a slightly bigger gap than that though, in favor of the PS4.
However it would have done much better than it ended up doing.

In this alternate timeline, who's in charge of XB when the official announcements are made and the system is launched?

Does the console still look like a VCR or does it get the XB1S treatment at launch?

Do the launch games change in anyway or does software stay the same?

For the purposes of this experiment, let's say the console still looks the same and the software lineup stays the same, just maybe with better performance to match PS4 spec.

I'm not so sure we get the redesigned XB1S in that case. I think XB1 sells well enough that assuming we get a slim, it continues to look like a smaller VCR. Which also means XB1X also probably ends up looking VCR like as well. I think this slightly hinders overall sales potential for all models but the system still sells considerably better overall than it did.

I'm not so sure about the whole BC push. That might've been 50/50 as to whether it happens or not since it wouldn't have been anywhere near as necessary. I'd also guess that GP doesn't happen. Not until 9th gen anyway, if at all. BC probably would've been enough so there wouldn't really be a need for GP.

This also might mean since Don doesn't screw up, he keeps running XB in 9th gen. That or we never get Don and Phil is responsible for all of this.

I'm going to say they sell about 80 million units, give or take.