I’d argue that Xbox and Sega for the OXB/360/Genesis were vastly different companies than the later two consoles. Seamus Blackley, Peter Moore, and J Allard had legitimately interesting ideas in the 00’s that shook up the console industry. And it’s also worth pointing out that MS’ goal wasn’t to compete with Sony, but steer the console industry in a direction where it wouldn’t replace PCs. They only continued because the XB had momentum and the 360 capitalized on that. Don Mattrick flushed that all down the toilet to the point where MS didn’t have the infrastructure to support a console, they needed to rebuild almost from scratch. With that in mind, the Series feels like a stronger attempt to catch up, just one that won’t be disrupted by COVID and AI. Granted, MS butchering the studios they bought makes me not want to be a part of that, but Activision still made truck loads of cash when they were the studio I hated that released Call of Duty.
