I completely disagree here. We can't compare Sony and MS when it comes to hardware choices.
Sony were coming off the back of ps4 and have a massive mindshare in public opinion and internally within the wider Sony business.
Microsoft made the best play they could, they offered an excellent mid budget option with the series S which has paid off in droves compared to if they had only the series x.
Microsoft did what they thought would be the best for them and it looks to have worked, if they had the software out put this would all be a completely different conversation. Those sales of the console and subscribers to game pass would be much larger if they had the software output to go with the other 2 key pillers. I think that is glaringly obvious.
They just were not ready software wise or even with direct x 12. They dropped the ball there while their hardware and services team were on point.
MAybe I am just crazy, but I look at MS hardware strategy differently. And as such, believe they dropped the ball on both hardware and software.
On the hardware front, I believe their need to claim the title of being the most powerful console precluded bad choices on their part. First, making an APU that they couldn't obtain volume at an acceptable cost. Second, I believe they intended to have a 20GB RAM console, but costs forced them to go for a convoluted version of 16GB. And setting a path of this, make a low volume super console paired with a high volume very cheap console, so we can claim both titles of most powerful and cheapest ultimately is doing more harm for them than good.
And as for the software, well that one is more obvious. They have had ample time to get their ducks in a row on that front. Surely, they knew they had lost the previous gen as far back as 2016. If they were still fixing on making a push for it with the current gen, they should have started working on the one area that they were clearly the weakest since back then.
But I think their single biggest fuckup so far is with their investment choices. Eg, lets say it cost them $550 to make each XSX. If they make sure their supply was in order, and sold them for $399. Taking around a $150 hit on each console, selling 20M of those consoles would have amounted to a $3B write-off. Imagine what a $400 XSX would have done. But further more, if they had taken another $6B, and used that to buy off 6 months to 1-year exclusive deals on every major third-party release over the past two years while also investing heavily in a portfolio of first-party games, they would be ina very different position right now.
But somehow, they deem it smart to spend upwards of $60B on one publisher. I mean, that tells me they could even have taken $6B hardware hit and sod the XSX at $299. Would have been a much cheaper way to kill of the competition.