Well, I would agree that the original Xbox One at launch was the most disappointing Xbox. But I think the fantastic X1X has breathed new life into the Xbox brand. It's the best and most technically impressive console I have ever owned, period. Not just from great specs, but the small form factor (despite an internal power brick), the state of the art cooling system, the relative silence of it, etc. And I get to play a huge catalogue of Xbox games from 360 and now, increasingly, OG Xbox. Add the unparalleled value of Game Pass to this and in my mind MS is crushing it. I think Phil is absolutely leading the brand in the right direction.
XBONEX has not breathed new life into the XBOX brand. The generation is over, XBONEX does not offer any exclusives the xbox vanilla does not. Sales of XBONEX are not close to breathing new life into the brand, no way that is going to happen at this price-point, this late in the generation. A higher resolution at the same 30fps with the same lack of exclusives, where the few that exists also happen to be on PC is not exactly breathing new life.
It's not like they have been at it for so long, and I personally don't have a lot of experience with the OG Xbox aside from the fact that no one in my country gave a shit about it (most stores didn't even sell it).
But I don't find the Xb1 to be particularly disappointing. To me it's just following the trend that MS started during the second half of last gen. For the first 3-4 years I loved my 360 and IMO it was doing everything right, it was cheaper, performed better in most multiplatform games, had better online services (paid though), had amazing exclusives for everyone from Shooters (Gears, Halo), Racing (Forza, PGR3), RPG's (Lost Odyssey, tales of vesperia, Mass Effect, etc), action adventure (Ninja Gaiden 2, Alan Wake), etc.
And then, IMO, they just sort of dropped the ball. They stopped investing in more risky games to just focus on their big sellers (Gears, Halo, Forza), they started pushing Kinect like crazy and their E3's went from cool announcements to kids playing Kinect, more Halo and Gears and just third party stuff. And that's pretty much where they are this gen (aside from Kinect): A big focus on third party games with arguably the best console to play them on and a bunch of uninteresting exclusives
They've been at it 3 generations now, that's not too far off from Sony. 360 had a headstart over PS3, was cheaper and produced nice visuals on multiplat games over Sony's PS3. However, in the end Sony still eclipsed them in sales. One could argue that lots of the Xbox 360 sales was due to RROD, there were people who went through 6-8 360's last gen. So perhaps it was a bit overzealous of some folk to think MS would just continue their success from the 360. MS were lucky to have launched before Sony and it became worse for Sony when they came a year later with a worse GPU and deal from Nvidia, where they had to go back on their plan of having a second cell chip for graphics. A lot went wrong with PS3 in terms of an astronomous R&D budget, an expensive launch price due to full BC (basically a PS2 in every PS3), which was a mistake, where that money and silicon space should have been used for an even better GPU than 360. In the end, they clawed their way back because of why they're winning now, they pushed many great exclusives and unique games on the PS3, and they're doing the same this gen. BC has never won a gen and it won't ever do so.
Better than 360 generation...no. Better than OG Xbox gen...probably. Say what you will about the Xbox One launch or lack of exclusives but I think between backwards compatibility and launching Xbox One X they have turned this gen around. Backwards compatibility adds a lot of value imo.
BC is just being spouted by a roaring few. Are you telling me the entire XBONEX installbase are playing Red Dead and NG Black right now? If you buy a $500.00 console in 2018 and it's biggest feature is to play 10-18 year old games, then I think something is wrong. Moreover, PC has been doing that for eons and we like to give these guys a good ribbing when they say it, but they can change their GPU every now and then and play all their old titles at 4k and 8k or even 16k downsampled......(at least at 60fps there). If playing old games with a rez boost and better AF at 30fps and lower is such a turn around, then perhaps we should all abandon consoles and all buy a PC, they've been doing that very feature better there for ages.....However I digress, in actuality, people buy a new piece of kit to see new spanking graphics and to get experiences they didn't have before, that's the main pull and it will always will be that way.
I think it's been the most disappointing console generation overall, not just Xbox. Just an endless succession of the same games from last gen with better graphics. There have been no real innovations or birth of exciting new genres. Hardware was underwhelming from the get go on both platforms so there's been no real advances for stuff like physics and AI. Just meh.
MS in particular really goofed up though and Mattrick, Whitten and Mehdi lost their minds. They thought they had made a breakthrough entertainment product and every home in America would own one, plus half the rest of the world. It of course was a disaster and Phil Spencer inherited a real mess to take care of.
Granted, the PS3 had Folklore, Journey, Flow and LBP which really pushed their respective genres forward, but this gen has lots of quality exclusives especially on the playstation and there were some interesting titles like the tomorrow children and No Man Skies. The biggest one is still yet to come in "Dreams", but we did get TLG and Gravity Rush 2 with unique gameplay from prior gens, where these type of games are rare as it is.
xbox one has only had 2 major successes this gen
Titanfall and Cuphead
Yet, they're both on PC and neither is a sales juggernaut or well reviewed like say a Journey or LBP last gen.....
List of PS4 Failures:
No backwards compatibility
No 4K bluray
No Game Pass
No EA All Access
Anti-crossplay
Half measured and ill supported PS4Pro
Inferior and constantly hacked network
Inferior controller
All console exclusives that didn't sell like Lawbreakers and The Order
Dearth of exclusives in first three years
Redundancy of exclusives (single player 3rd person adventure games)
Fun game to point fingers and disparage what other people are enjoying right ?
BC is not a priority, PS3 had full BC for two gens prior and they should have focused on putting a better GPU in instead, it caused delays et al, not worth it. BC is only worth it when it's a no brainer. PS4-PS5 will be easy BC and won't encroach on what the PS5 could be.
Nobody cares about 4k bluray, everybody watches Netflix, Amazon, Hulu. Hell, more people are subscribed to Sony's Vue as opposed to 4k bluray making any dent. It's there as an alternative, but it's not leading the charge in movie delivery in 2018 and won't beyond that. MS is not leading the charge in media from an informed perspective. Don't you think a hardware/movie company like sony would put 4k bluray in if it helped their games or was important for the console? DVD made sense on PS2, Bluray made sense on PS3, on PS4 4KBD was not necessary because everything is shifting to digital and internet services at the minute. 4K BD does nothing for Sony's games and is not necessary also. Eh! God of War is around 40GB's....
EA access??? You know the games that fall the quickest in price is an EA game, BattleField, Battlefront, Fifa, Madden, Golf.....You can get these games for cheap very quickly, why should you pay a yearly service when you can buy these games in what is already a limited set of genres for $5-10 and tie it to your account permanently instead? Besides, you buy Fifa 2017, 2018 now, in a few it's old news anyway, people move on, unto next year..... I don't think EA access is as enticing as you purport it to be.
Crossplay is only important to the guy in last place. If crossplay is so important, XBOX does not need SONY, they can go that route with Nintendo and PC full fledge ahead and teach Sony a lesson. Why don't they?
The rest of your list is a joke, since I think you're being humorous. My sarcasm meter may be broken........, though it has not been for a good minute, even millenia. Still....Inferior controller. Ha!
One question though Hip Hop, how is that superior controller, Ea access, crossplay, great exclusives and sales juggernauts like Recore, Sea of thieves, Super lucky tales, Ryse, Quantum Break, Sunset overdrive et al pushing XBOX sales and mindshare at the minute?
That's rhetorical btw, but as I said, the last couple of points were clearly (chuckle material), so I'll leave it there.....Carry on then...