I mean man, outside of Gears and Halo, they really didn't bring much the last twenty years and those titles fell off in regards to their consistency by not being able to produce great sequels. Not to mention other shooters like Call of Duty being the era's defining shooter games during those years.
The simple question though is, was anybody really needing an Xbox in the first place and even more relevant - do they now? When the Xbox dropped it was because of Halo, then the 360 dropped it was because of Gears. Nothing to note since then as the other big action games took over - back in 2007 which was more than 15 years ago.
Starfield this year was supposed to be that game, but it only now has barely outsold Final Fantasy XVI (which had a lot of protest) and still at best sits as the 5th highest selling title this year. That ain't moving the needle in the way they need. If that took 10 years to make, that's not a good sign if they need something in the next three years (2027).
They haven't been able to create any enormous exclusive console-must have FOMO since Gears of War and Halo to be honest. After the 360 generation, most FPS gamers went to PC straight up while relying on Playstation and Nintendo for all the other games. Sports games are basically PS-dominated and has taken a lot of people's needs for online team games. Nobody needs exclusive Microsoft shooters anymore.
Again, 2027 is three years away and they're going to need something big. At this point, I don't see it. They'll need to find something fast and easy to make that's groundbreaking. That kind of innovation doesn't come around often.
As a company, maybe Microsoft goes the Nvidia route and steps away from gaming to focus on AI and put more resources into ChatGPT as they may be starting to engage in an AI war with Google after they purchased OpenAI.
So that's three big competitors in different markets, 2 of which (Apple and Sony) they're getting out-gunned and the other (Google) is a monster when it comes to the internet and now they're basically direct competitors for internet search space. At this point they're spread thin and kind of, well, mid at everything except they got ChatGPT (and hopefully the acquisition of OpenAI don't end up like their other acquisitions).
Sometimes you got to learn you can't swim with fish and you may have to pull your resources because you're getting spread too thin.
If Microsoft does end up leaving the space, I'd personally love to see a Sony and Nintendo all out war.
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