MS will claw back the gap this gen, and here's why I think so.
1. Hardware - They have learnt the lesson from the OG One. MS has always had the most powerful system. OG Xbox blew away both PS2 and GC. 360 was a better designed system, and had the best third party versions. Last gen they got carried away with what they saw from the Wii and Kinect. They chose fads over hardcore gamers.
The One X was their sorry letter. They showed what they should have done first up.
I think MS will pull out all the stops with the XSX. PS5 won't have the same power differential as last gen. I expect the PS5 to be around 10tflops and the XSX around 12.
The One X also had DX12 baked into the GPU. This allowed DX12 games to reduce the load on the CPU by up to half. I expect this will be added again, with further DX12 additions via. DX Ray Tracing . Very few developers take full use of DX 12, and obviously all MS first parties will use it.
So all in all, expect the XSX to give developers all they need.
Games - Sony showed this gen the importance of exclusive first party titles for your system. In the 360 era MS won without needing to have the first party exclusives, and they found that timed exclusives like BioShock, Dead Space, Mass Effect etc seemed to work. Unfortunately MS took that and thought that would be the same this gen. They let their most famous first party studios in Bungle just walk away. They let Rare rot away in a basement somewhere and concentrated on stupid Kinect games. Kinect was going to be the gift that kept giving.
Well, history showed that was a massive miscalculation. In addition to Sony and Nintendo having their high quality FP games, Google has now also entered the playground, and will most likely be followed up by Amazon. Both Google and Amazon will be working to increase their exclusives as they will need to differentiate themselves in whats becoming a crowded market. The movie and TV streaming industry is ahead of the gaming industry, and there is now stupid money being thrown around to buy up exclusive rights to popular shows such and friends, Seinfeld and Big Bang. Content is king. The same will happen in the next 5 years with the gaming industry and both Google and Amazon will be throwing big money to buy out these exclusives. Either wouldn't think twice at buying EA, Ubisoft or Activision. Both MS and Sony know this is where things will head, and this is why you are seeing not only MS, but Sony buying more studios.
With MS knowing the tale of the tape they will improve out of sight their exclusive game roster. They have 343i developing the Halo series, The Coalition doing Gears, Playgroung Games bringing Fable back to life, Ninja Theory with Hellblade 2 and so on. There will be more buy outs to come, and we should see the fruits of this labour in the next two years.
In my personal opinion, MS needs the XSX to return to its roots as a shooter box, and invest in those types of games. This is a weakness in Sony's exclusives roster, and should be pushed.
We will see far more, and far better exclusives on the XSX than we did on the One.
Connectivity - Xbox Live makes Sonys online look like chopped liver. Gamespass is getting more attractive by the month, and as a leader in this Sony will continue to lack behind and follow MSs lead. Hell, Sony has had to go to MS to even get theirs going.
MS has massive server farms and data centres. Sony and Nintendo cannot ever try to compete in this area. Its just not possible. Only Google and Amazon can go head to head with MS on this, and they will.
Leadership - Without doubt the culture within MS has changed 180 degrees. From the launch of the OG One till now, MS has listened and learnt. In fact alot of people are now saying MS could hurt itself by being so customer friendly. Towards the end of this generation MS has showed up Sony in this regard, with giving Xbox One s and X owners the ability to play UHD Blurays and bringing BC to a large number of 360 games, including improvements to visual quality and frame rates.
And lets not even bother comparing Phil Spencer to Jim Ryan.
To the Xbox owners, sit back, buckle up and enjoy the ride. Its gonna be a good one.