Thats a weird post as PUBG was arguably the biggets game on the planet back when thre OneX launched.
And it ran like shit. And it wasn't a looker either and more importantly wasn't First-Party.
I bet it was like panic decision.
As for the question from the OP. I think Xbox would of done fine in 2021, but yeah they would of struggled this year without Gamepass.
Gamepass is def making up for the lck of firts party games this year (and the lack third-partyrty games too to be fair, what a shitty year this has been for games).
This is from memory:
We all know their incredible shitstorm they had PR/Marketing wise before the console Xbone was even out.
When it released, it was more expensive and several games ran worst. I remember a meme of 900p and even 720p.
BUT it had more games in the (lunch window). meme was: PlayStation 4 haz no gamez. One of the horizon games came out and it was incredible especially against DriveClub.
I don't really remember exactly when things starting to get worst for Xbox.
But I remember MS cancelling like 4 games and some of them were like vaporware or not what people were expecting.
This was one of the lowest point of MS. It was really bad.
Then you had one E3 when MS introduced their backwards compatibility and after that Game Pass.
BC and Game Pass were for several years doing the hard job of keeping Xbox afloat.
This is where the meme of "Next Year" came to be.... which still is relevant (this is insane)
Of course the green rats were/are evangelizing Game Pass like Jehovah's Witnesses....but it was after Outrides that I start to feel an infection point in which Game Pass starting to actually turn the narrative.
I think it was because of combination of factors:
1. Day one or pretty close to it (I don't remember).
2. Kind of a big game.
3. It felt like coming to Game Pass gave a game a second chance of succeeding.
Right now when I think of Xbox I think of Game Pass; they are synonyms in my mind.