All things point to them trying to have the most powerful and the most affordable next-gen consoles with the Series X and Series S, and making the Xbox brand a “ONE” type system where the console and PC ecosystems benefit, with more first-party support.
This is a solid strategy, for them to have a strong fighting chance to win North America, but not the “console war”. Sony’s grip on the European market and RoW has proven time and time again to be too much for Xbox to overcome, and with PlayStation having solid sales in JP and Xbox being nonexistent at this point whatever lead they could take in NA will be completely voided by the global market.
Their plan has to also include launching and doing extremely well in other markets such as China, Brazil, India, etc…, otherwise they can win NA, and still lose the console war as PlayStation has a near 60m guaranteed sales in EU / RoW / and JP alone, and based on history worst-case scenario another 30m in NA which Xbox has not shown to be able to surpass.
New markets, price, performance, and great exclusives are their best bet at challenge PlayStation this gen (the key being new markets). Although there’s one other thing I personally feel they should have done as well, but it’s unlikely to happen at this point.
