I distinctly remember a discussion I had with my uncle right as this gen was beginning, he was about to buy his 3 sons their 1st console, and his question was "should I buy a PS5?".
I tried to talk to him about Gamepass + Series S being potentially a better value for his sons so he doesn't have to worry about buying them new games all the time (games are expensive), his response was basically "dude please it's gotta be PS5" and he went to get a PS5 the next day, got it in a bundle with Miles Morales and Demon's souls (which I traded him for Sackboy). Keep in mind that this is a guy whose last seriously-played console was the 3DO probably (Road Rash and Need For Speed were the fucking bomb, as was SSF2 Turbo). He's not some console warrior, he's not even an active gamer anymore, he's the dictionary definition of "normie", and that's his reaction.
With each quarter, it genuinely feels like this brand is a zombie that's only still going because it's being constantly pumped up by some otherworldly spell, there's no organic appeal or customer base for it anymore, no one will listen to its marketing anymore, network effects are completely against it too, and they don't have any actual good will or good 1P content that can claw back market share. It only lives because the current strategy says it has to live and the company is able to feed $$$ to said current strategy.
I think it's only a matter of time until the Xbox console business is completely gone. I'm glad I got my Series X, but I barely turn it on at all (my wife seems to like Ori so maybe she will play it there? other than that who knows?).
