That's always somewhat a potential problem with companies the size of Microsoft. IBM had similar issues a while ago in this regard, you get so large that parts of the company get bogged down by corporate bureaucracy, so some divisions may not know what the other is doing.
Sony isn't a small company per-se but they're overall smaller than MS in terms of scope. They may have a movie division, music division, games division etc. but they're all in the entertainment field and rather closely linked with each other. It's to their benefit more often than not.
MS may not be in some of those fields (though apparently studios like 343i were dabbling with entertainment options for Halo Infinite, in the TV series still in limbo), but in terms of scope they are a bit broader. They have to service entertainment options (Xbox), consumer electronics (Xbox, Surface, etc.), consumer and professional PC markets (Windows), business software markets (Office 365, etc.), server and cloud distribution business sectors (Azure, etc.), and more. Their investments are spread out across more segmented fields, sometimes it can be an issue to fully synergize everything together like that.
For next-gen gaming I really feel their best shot for messaging is to do what they were doing from December last year up to around April or so: put the spotlight on Series X. Center the value proposition around that system. Everything else, including Gamepass, need to be secondary. Things like Xcloud and Gamepass should, if anything, be positioned as value-adds for investing in a Series X, not treat Series X as an "well yeah you can also pick it up if you want it but we're really not requiring you to get it" kind of thing. Doesn't mean those services have to be exclusive to Series X, but any messaging and marketing for them should primarily be built around that system. Later down the line once Series X establishes its market presence, is when they can start messaging about Gamepass, Xcloud etc. leaning more into what it can do for mobile markets, etc.
I actually kind of think, in that respect, they could be moving a tad too fast on those services. I think if they weren't as focused on Gamepass and Xcloud for non-Xbox devices they'd of had more resources at the Xbox division for the 1st-party teams and maybe we would've had a few other next-gen 1st-party games coming even if HI got delayed. In fact I'm almost pressed to say their focus on Gamepass and Xcloud might be the reason why there wasn't as much QA and oversight onto what was going on with 343i, the former may've distracted from the latter in terms of ascertaining how dev was really going over the past two or so years.
Welp, here's hoping MS can re-strengthen their messaging going forward. They still have time, tho it's not as much as they might like to think.
Huh?