Imo I would love for Xbox and PC to be the same and new Xbox hw to be cheap high-mid range PCs since I feel like there is a market for that but MS has the brand to push it and be successful in it
Hm, true but it will rather decrease than increase for MS, if Sony doesn't fuck it up.
Why bother at all? R&D is very expensive, they should colaborate with Sony/Nintendo and compete on the service/software level.
The potential Xbox userbase will be split into casuals buying the console and hardcore gamers going for the definitive experience on PC. MS is in a rough spot when it comes to hardware. They have the software/OS and they want to push it further, but they don't have a device with global mass-appeal to do so. Their vision of a Windows10 based ecosystem will never work for most of us.