Series S was absolutely not a mistake. Most people who have the Xbox Series use the S. It is a great entry point and if they included a disc drive it would be even better.
Problem for Microsoft is ironically that as a software company they are terrible at making inhouse software and then fire the people they hire to make them great software.
Rumors that they are going to release a Xbox handheld that can't play Xbox games and only play anywhere titles shows how they lost the plot if true. Added to this are the rumors the next xbox will be a PC hybrid?
If people wanted a PC they would buy one not a watered down variant that you can't upgrade. Atari tried this with the VCS and it didn't catch steam because people want PCs to be PCs and consoles to be consoles.
At this point I am only with Xbox because I went with them during the 360 era. They have been making terrible decisions. I don't care if they release their exclusives on other systems (especially since most their exclusives are money hatted games other studios made dating back to the original Halo), but this emphasis on everything being an Xbox and the asinine naming system for their systems is killing the brand.
Xbox One S/X and Series S/X... Yeah that won't confuse consumers one bit. Phil Spencer looks so amazing because he succeeded Don Mattrick not based on his own merits. A lot of the credit given to Phil was probably him just approving the ideas of others which in fairness is what CEOs do I guess. But he just seems to lack initiative. I would say his leadership has been just okay because of this.
The CEO of Microsoft is based for letting Xbox continue despite all the blunders I guess.
I think this is right on the money. There's a lot of finger-pointing towards the Series S as being a bit of a scapegoat for Xbox's current woes, but I think it was actually a clever idea. Microsoft is a PC company first and foremost, where the idea of having tiered hardware capabilities is widespread. Creating a lower spec'd device as an entry level for those who don't care about all the bells and whistles is a clever idea. It's more or less what Sony does each generation, although they wait a few years before releasing their higher end model. I think it gets a bad rap because consumer and even some developers point to it as a source of some woes, but if Switch can handle many modern ports it can.
I think the "Series S/X" branding is Wii U level bad, some of the worst on the market today, plus Microsoft wanting their PC sales and eating it too mentality. There's less and less reason to own an Xbox these days over a gaming PC, and Microsoft seems unwilling or unknowlegable to how to make it enticing. I suspect Sony will continue to have similar troubles too though, we'll see how the console market shapes up in the next 5-10 years
