if they actually wanted to compete and sell consoles they would have made COD and all bethesda games xbox only
That was never in the cards. Firstly, governmental oversight committees basically told them no on CoD from the very beginning.
Second one--they tried with Starfield and it failed. No one was interested in buying a system for it. True, it didnt help that it was subpar, but still.
Their other exclusives(Redfall, Forza Motorsport, etc.) all landed with a resounding thud while Sony and Nintendo were dropping at least 1(or more) high profile GOTY contenders every single year.
You also had inadvertent consequences of some games, particularly Baldurs Gate 3, becoming PS exclusives for a time because you made two systems and your lower end couldn't run it well. Same with Black Myth: Wukong.
Games cost a fortune to make--you can't get mad and roll up and spend $80 billion dollars to try and(in historical Microsoft fashion) buy your way to victory when you've already convinced your audience they don't need to buy games anymore.
Making CoD exclusive might have changed the equation IF they could have, but without that ability, you NEED the install base of the other systems to make revenue. It's impossible otherwise.
What it seems to be is the standard Microsoft status quo we've seen in phones, wtc.
Enter a market, try and get success, find some success, but you're not the top dog, try and *buy* your way to success, it doesnt work, get mad and essentially give up and chase a different trend.
Game Pass *is* a good value, but it is terrible for the industry. I don't see a way that it ever really "grows" to the levels they want and need it to, because the gaming audience doesn't seem particularly keen on "Netflix for Games' as to how they want their gaming to be in the future.
Kind of how GAAS is being stonewalled outside of the ones already established.