The most interesting things MS has had over the last few years have been indie games. Inside (not exclusive anymore), Ori, and Cuphead. In terms of big exclusives they've just been making bad bets. Scalebound got cancelled. Crackdown 3 has been in development hell. Sea of Thieves turned out poorly. PUBG was the biggest thing ever, but then as soon as Microsoft invested in it Fortnite started to eat its lunch. They've got Forza, Gears, and Halo, as usual, but those aren't as big as they used to be. They doubled down on hardware because they heard the narrative about how the PS4 was the stronger console for a few years there but I don't think the One X or the Pro have been supported well enough to get anybody to switch just so they can get a higher resolution for multiplatform games.
Meanwhile almost everything Sony does is working out. They're letting their studios do new stuff instead of just having the Killzone team make another Killzone, or just making another formulaic God of War, and it's usually working out for them. Plus they're getting some of the best 3rd party support out of Japan they've ever had, which MS still isn't investing in because they probably know they're never going to get that market anyways.
Microsoft bet the farm on "brogaming" and coasting on existing franchises. The couple of new franchises they put money into have largely been disappointments. Titanfall being the biggest example. Huge marketing splash, tons of money dropped to make to exclusive. Seems like everyone played it for about a week or two, and that was about it.
They also completely misread the market with their initial plan to let gaming take a back seat to media and streaming. Sony beat them to that punch in the PS3, and it seemed like MS was determined to not let that happen twice. Problem was, an all-purpose media center might have been exciting in 2007, but by the time the Xbone came out, every device in the house could stream Netflix already, and their target demographic couldn't care less about having a new central interface for their cable/satellite service. Because everyone was already in the process of dumping cable. Meanwhile, Sony doubled down on games for the PS4.
It's also why I think the 4K Blu-ray player for the 1X is just not that compelling. Everyone was saying that Sony was making a huge mistake by not putting one into the PS4 Pro, but I think they were reading the landscape better. The market is already largely moving toward non-physical media for almost everything, including 4K. Millennials and Gen Y don't like physical media. 4K Blu-ray is great for home theater enthusiasts, but it's not likely to become a household item like Blu-ray did.
It's sad about Kinect, honestly. It's a pretty awesome technology, and it's too bad it's seemingly getting abandoned. Forcing it on people, and jacking the price way up to support it, was a huge mistake. Sony played that game last gen with Blu-ray, but they were willing to take the hit to kill HD-DVD, and it worked.
