At times, I really don't understand Microsoft's MO.

They own a tonne of studios and IPs, and have also completed acquisitions of both Bethesda and Activision Blizzard over the past few years.

Xbox could easily surpass PlayStation if Microsoft actually bothered to leverage the intellectual properties they've developed and acquired to start pumping out exclusives. If they shat out a slew of console exclusives like new Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, StarCraft, Elder Scrolls, Doom, Pillars of Eternity, Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie, Jet Force Gemini, Conker, Gears, Halo, etc games, and actually ensured they were competently made, Sony wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

Heck, if World of Warcraft got an exclusive Xbox port optimized with gamepad controls in mind (cross parity with PC may not be possible given how prevalent third party add-ons are), they'd dethrone Sony.

I can understand why certain IPs like Minecraft are better kept multiplatform, because Microsoft make an absolute mint off of merchandising which made their $2bn acquisition of Mojang more than worth it.

Microsoft are dead-last in the console race because they aren't doing anything with the sheer volume of IP's they have.

Unless they're doing this on purpose to avoid pissing off the FTC & CMA, acting all buddy-buddy with Nintendo and Sony because you're too incompetent to compete isn't going to drive innovation in the console market. If anything it's going to stagnate things. Nintendo really need the kick up the arse necessary for them to actually improve their hardware and the state of Nintendo Switch Online, and perhaps they need both Microsoft and Sony to offer a superior product to open their eyes.