No wonder Microsoft is exploring bringing its games to PlayStation 5
I think you have it backwards. The Xbox has always been a project to PC-ify the console market - initially running Windows on cheap ARM hardware (which failed) and then shipping an honest-to-god Pentium 3 desktop with USB controllers.
They lost focus during the 360 era because the PS3 stumbled out the gate. That era is when multiplatform development won. PS2 games tended to be made specifically for PS2 - as was practically necessary for all prior consoles. But between GTA, RenderWare, and Unreal, devs saw they could sell the same game to everybody. Microsoft made that easy and got great ports. Sony’s impressive-but-goofy hardware did nnnot.
Every Playstation model since then has been nearly indistinguishable from Xbox hardware. The Xbone infamously tried unifying a variety of… frankly terrible ideas. But that machine and the PS4 were basically identical. And the next model is largely compatible. And the next. And the next.
In some sense, there are no consoles, anymore. You just pick the blue AMD laptop or the green AMD laptop. Even Playstation fans accidentally acknowledge this: they joke about the PS5 having “no games,” when what they mean is, damn near everything is multiplatform. Not even software is unique to one brand anymore.
This is why Microsoft is finally talking about releasing Playstation games. They won a fight Sony didn’t know was happening. I expected it to happen a decade ago, when we thought the silliest possible name would be Xbox Two. And though their motives are deeply gross, they will probably do the right thing accidentally, and push to have consumer hardware opened up, the way the EU is finally forcing Apple to stop choking its own customers.
But, being Microsoft, they are terrible at expressing any of this. They vague-post about the future of The Brand.™ They quietly pull products from shelves. No kidding customers are wary; Microsoft’s acting like they went broke. But they very obviously didn’t. So you have to look at it sideways to figure out what the fuck they’re thinking.
What they were thinking, twenty-five years ago, is that they could make the Apple Pippin work. And they did.