And bear in mind, it's a possibility that their rush to market at least in part led to the RROD fiasco. They did a lot right on the software side, but fragility of the hardware was a major, major engineering fuckup that did a good deal in squandering that early lead and positive mindshare. The 360 was synonymous with RROD as much as XBox Live in later years.
We know they lost a ton on the original Xbox due to that generous Nvidia contract - again, rushing to make the generation. The RROD likely prevented them from turning a profit with their most successful console, the 360 - if they would even be in the black without it. Xbox One was well,
that, and now they're even being outsold more with the Series X. It's 23+ years of a money sink. That's a lot of rope.
Xbox has not failed to turn a profit in 22 years because of a trailer with an unattractive female lead for pete's sake. I mean the Spiderman games are full of cloying tweeness and corporate 'inclusiveness' that I find transparent and obnoxious at points too, but they're massive sellers. It's because the games have great production values and are for the most part, fun. Like when the hell has Fable
ever been a system seller? As for the Halo TV series, even if it was critically acclaimed, why would it necessarily lead to a huge uplift in Xbox sales? You've still got to make the games, focusing on media spinoffs was the problem of the Xbox One in the first place.