Xbox is important for 3 reasons and therefore its importance is because of different aspects:
1- Video game industry was in the hands of Japan. Meaning, developers and video game companies around the world had to deal with a "too different country" to make business with. However XBOX makes lots of stuff way easier for business and it's beyond language but also culture too. It was especially important in the era XBOX released. XBOX being an American thing from a popular American company that English and American culture is what people are familiar with enough to make decent business with.
2- Due to way Japan was the country of "video game industy" significant amount of international money was only taken by them. For America stopping that flow and getting some of it to itself was economically important. For America it would be stupid for them to ignore video game industry when it's a gold mind.
3- Due to popularity of Japanese consoles and their price especially since PS3 they became something "it's a scam dude". In my country Sony console prices were "realistic" with PS1 and PS2 but not since PS3. Those who cried about the price of PS3 now turned into the Niagra Falls looking at PS5 price. That shit is expensive so hard I can buy a decent 2nd hand car for that price!!!
When it comes to XBOX, why it mattered for so many countries is they were always the cheaper one, it still is but only the newest XBOX gen is "too stupid to buy" even when you can afford because you can do lots of shit for that price instead. As for Nintendo they were always expensive so when I bought GBA SP and New 3DS they were broken ones that I knew how to fix them. But GBA SP was never completely fixed so for some reason despite it was turned off it was still wasting battery anyway and New 3DS I have now sometimes have no sound issue that I gotta shake that baby lolol.
What I see is now even Americans complain about price of Switch 2 and its games, this shit was same as my country during PS3-era. If this shit continue like that like how my country mostly skipped PS Vita, PS4 and PS5 rest of the world may go for XBOX instead for cheaper and most importantly "the realistic alternative". But what is different is despite video game market is gold mine companies started to think this gold mine's cost doesn't worth that profit especially because you can come up with legendary shit that is expensive but if it can't get popular enough all your strategic execution fails so you lose tons of money. Economy is shit for everyone and therefore more than how it effects to ordinary people it makes business too risky for companies. So it doesn't seem like video game consoles have a future anymore in this world when clearly Gamer Smart Phones (GSP) is the real deal decent gold mine anymore.
It may seem odd to say "video game consoles have no future" when consoles greatly attracted by "PC is too complex to deal with" gamer profile, however this is part of why and how new generation people have no reason to have a TV anymore with great exception. Now the social shift is mostly about how people focuses on buying a smartphone to do everything they want on it. That's why some of these people stopped buying consoles when all they care about is playing a game and they don't care how and mobile gaming is better choice for them. That's partly why Nintendo thinks of the future as they learned from Sega and release a console in the long run of what kind of likely society the world will transform into. Due to the "smartphone dependent social shift" there will come a time that smartphones will project video on walls so people will watch a movie and they will have serious gamer models. I would prefer one that I can cook stuff though lolol.
Why I told about these despite it doesn't seem "related"? But this is what Microsoft will play on with evolving XBOX brand. So cloud gaming, streaming, Game Pass and whatnot shit is investment for future to make world get ready to the state of gaming when you buy Gamer Smart Phone (GSP) and play on it lots of way by running the game on it, via streaming and all and then you can play these games via Game Pass like model and "pay as much as you wanna play" models and whatnot. In a way "home video game consoles" won't die out per se, it will be just in a way "if you wanna play on your screen then connect your GSP to it" thingy. Thus companies will benefit a lot then risking console releases and paying for physical video game manufacturing and distribution to sell them and all. This is the likely future of XBOX and lots of video game companies.
Once smartphones seen as "unnecessary" by society because "it's too complex and I'm not like president of America" lol and now even little kids have on, so lots of shit you see in our world as "unnecessary" will be the way of living in the future. Can't even unlock your house' door without smartphone or actually buy something lol. When you are sick you used to ask your mamma what to do, now you use your smartphone to google it and ask an AI. Future already came and future is "now". It's not that obvious to most people lol.
TL;DR: Existence of XBOX did matter a lot for video game companies, developers, America and Microsoft economically and thanks to the way they were cheaper compared to other consoles in some countries so it benefited a lot for gamers all around the world especially during the era PC gaming was too expensive. And lastly stuff about likely future of XBOX.
