It's clear as day how the next "console war" stage is heading, we are heading to a war of subscription services. Exclusives have always been important when it comes to hardware sales but now days it's more about how much content you can add versus a few exclusive games
Microsoft is making blockbuster moves like buying Bethesda possibly Activision, flat out buying many other studios, doing their best to repair their image. (yes the xbox one reveal debacle still is being felt today) ON paper the Series X is even the most powerful console. Microsoft is using it's deep pockets and can see this seriously paying off in the next few years.
On the other hand, Sony has been getting a bad anti consumer rep lately. The massive Gran Turismo greed debacle combined with reports that ps3 games you purchased digitally are blocked from use with their new service is not a good look. If you compare spartacus to Game Pass it's down right pathetic. The main difference is game pass offers much more for not much difference in price. Sony did a great job of taking advantage of the xbox one debale and become the consumers people's champion. I think corporate greed maybe steering them away from it.
Lets fast forward 5 years. Lets say Microsoft becomes real aggressive and decides to make all of their companies games exclusive to the xbox brand. With the amount of games under the xbox umbrella, Microsoft have much more firepower than Sony could dream of offering right now. If you want to play the next Call of duty, Doom, Fallout, etc you have to play it on gamepass. Hell this gamepass could spread even more to smartphones, smart tv's, almost anything that can offer a conneciton. Sony in the long haul just cannot complete with their handful of best int he business exclusives.
Lets fast foward 10 years from now. It's time for the ps6/xbox series Z. Chip shortages are here to stay. It's not just the pandemic but demand for almost anything who need certain microchips are going to make demand scarce for the foreseeable future. Cars, tablets, phones, consoles, pc's and every other smart device are all fighting for the same components. As the years go on, more and more devices need these same chips and demand simply cannot catch up. It makes much more sense for Sony/Microsoft to make a simple console and use streaming as the main source. I do not believe the next consoles will be complicated devices but more simple streaming boxes. Much more cost efficient for the manufacture's and consumer alike.
In 10 years I believe streaming will be the future and it's going to be more about buying Sony Exclusive service or Microsoft exclusive service! The average available streaming speed across the USA today is 200mbps. In 10 years it will probalby be over a gig or more. I can verify using Geforce now that streaming gaming can be flawless if executed properly. In 10 years I can almost guarantee they will have the kinks worked out along with the increased speeds that will make this feel like a native experience. It's going to come down to if you want to buy the PS6 streaming box with their style controller versus Xbox Game Pass and their streamign box and exclusive controller. This is a nightmare situation for Sony but it is what it is.
*before the whole Xbox fanboy flames note that I haven't owned an Xbox since the 360 days. I exclusively play on the Quest 2, switch, and ps5. With that being said, Microsoft is making moves now that will pay off in the long haul.