This reads like nightmare fuel for developers wishing to concentrate on only a handful of platforms. Basically forcing a PC approach to all developers if they want to support Xbox. What even is Xbox in that context ? A platform competing with PC ? So fucking dumb. Release Xbox branded PCs and call it day, then realize it's dumb, and stop releasing any kind of hardware.
Xbox going third party doesn't suddenly mean a free for all. I would imagine that they would still manage the hardware targets to make it fairly straight forward for developers. MS would release the OS, drivers, SDKs and look after the DirectX side of things (like they do anyway on PC with Windows) whilst hardware manufacturers worry about making something to the spec. Think like how Google manage Android but anyone can manufacture a phone that it can run on. MS are not going to want to just give up on all that platform holder revenue but they want to reduce the running costs of it all. Personally it's a massive risk that could totally backfire and leave them holding an even bigger bag full of shit than they got now.
Microsoft's flip-flopping ADHD behaviour has been as much to blame for all of this as anything imo. To be a platform holder you have to have some stability and be able to show your customers that you can follow a steady course before they will invest in it and spend in it. Microsoft have just been floundering, trying all kinds of crazy shit to try and grow their platform but have totally missed the target.
MS - "why won't people come to our platform? We keep dramatically changing our plans to try and make it more appealing but people just keep leaving, why oh why?"
** crickets **