I hope Xbox stays focused on bringing games to Game Pass on day one. I don't want to see them being reactive now and start moneyhatting big AAA productions as well (and thus practically only paying money to exclude other platforms).
Yeah, if the Xbox division has money to throw around, I hope the investments are:
-improving and overhauling the Xbox ecosystem on Windows 10, at the moment it's atrocious. It's very telling that a ton of people are willing to pay standard game prices for Microsoft's games on Steam rather than subscribing to Game Pass for a very modest fee of €5 per month
-more 1st party acquisitions. Microsoft is in a precarious position in the sense that they're releasing a ton of games in 2020 and most of them to critical and commercial success, but they're still long ways off having the same prestige that Sony or Nintendo have. Sony can release a 70 metacritic rated game like Days Gone and still sell over 5 million copies. New studios to signal that more content is coming further down the road would be a tremendous shot in the arm
-affordable console hardware, maybe not lose money directly but at least operate on zero margins
-drop the online multiplayer paywall
-get Azure servers operating on the Series X hardware ASAP. I watched Brad Sams' presentation of Xcloud on his phone and it was rough, the time from him choosing to play Ori and him finally playing the game was way too long. A part of the appeal of a streaming service should be its instantaneousness, which it's currently lacking
-encourage more 3rd party publishers to release Play Anywhere titles. If I buy a game on the Xbox store, I want it to be accessible to me on any device - be it the console, my desktop PC or my ultrabook when I'm traveling
Xbox generates $11.5B a year in revenue on the back of the disastrous Xbox One launch, now they're much better positioned than they were back in 2013. Xbox Series X year 1 is bound to be slower than PS5's, but it should still be solid enough to form a foundation for future success once the first party studios shift into top gear.
The Playstation brand is far more popular at the moment, but at the likely price of €500 for the new console and additional costs their growth is a bit self-limiting and they're creating a huge window of opportunity for Microsoft. Switch is missing out on a ton of 3rd party games and has been selling like hot cakes, so XSX missing out on a few 3rd party games moneyhatted by Sony shouldn't be too much of an influence either.