With game pass popping off the last 18 months it seems like Xbox has really hit their stride as a publishing house. Admittedly they’ve largely done this by throwing billions upon billions of dollars to buy IP, but Expedition 33, Palworld, blue Prince and other hits popping off shows this hasn’t exclusively been the case.
Meanwhile, Sony have had the most expensive flop in video game history with Concord, PSVR2 basically being DOA, and a perplexing pivot to chasing live service trends has meant that the system has missed out on several potential first party hits. Their subscription service pales comparatively to game pass, and there is very little of interest coming in the pipeline.
The PS5 has won this gen over Xbox in terms of sales, but I think customer confidence in their approach has dropped massively, at least for me.
As a console I agree completely, Xbox is pretty much done unless they succeed with Handheld and “opening up the ecosystem” (however it is they are supposed to make money off of that).
As a PC/PS5/Switch gamer, I’ve given more money to Xbox than I’ve given to Sony or Nintendo the last 2 years. Steam key resellers have gotten most of my money but Game pass for PC has been compelling recently.
I’m not sure how profitable it is, but the service is currently good.