Assuming the RROD is impossible to avoid, a better refund/fix policy would have gone a long way. Because for most people, myself included, the "send it back and we will fix it" was extremely lacking. It was a cumbersome process that was incredibly difficult for a younger person (a huge market share) to accomplish, only for them to usually send it back still broken or break again shortly after. And by the second time they usually pulled "out of warranty get fucked!"
While a product recall and full replace would have likely cost them an absurd amount of money, it would have done wonders to keep their brand loyalty high and their reputation as better than Playstation longer lived. As well as keep dev companies confident in developing for the console into the future knowing it would reach the maximum audience.
Another would have been to drop Xbox Live Gold. PS3 was able to survive its entire life with free online, so them demanding you pay for it still continues to be fucking offensive and was even more so at that time. Same with charging for DLC, like when they demanded Valve charge for the L4D maps, which should have been either free or buyable with Achievement Points (giving them some value beyond braggarts). While full games are fine to charge, map packs should never have been paid for.
That's all in the past so its meaningless now, especially as those last two points they managed to corrupt the industry into following their example and becoming the standard.
As for now? I don't think its salvagable. You'd need a lot of "must have" games to sell consoles to people, and then AA games can start being produced for it by having a decent install base. They've shown they aren't able to get those level of games anymore (and PS5 has shown no console really is), so attaching themselves to the Box itself is a sinking ship.
Gamepass is a really good thing, and I think if its stable profit wise they should keep focusing on that. If they can move a lot of their catalogue to it and make them all backwards compatible I think it can become a "must have" streaming service. But that's the only real future I can see for them short of a radical change.
Assuming the RROD is impossible to avoid, a better refund/fix policy would have gone a long way. Because for most people, myself included, the "send it back and we will fix it" was extremely lacking. It was a cumbersome process that was incredibly difficult for a younger person (a huge market share) to accomplish, only for them to usually send it back still broken or break again shortly after. And by the second time they usually pulled "out of warranty get fucked!"
While a product recall and full replace would have likely cost them an absurd amount of money, it would have done wonders to keep their brand loyalty high and their reputation as better than Playstation longer lived. As well as keep dev companies confident in developing for the console into the future knowing it would reach the maximum audience.
Another would have been to drop Xbox Live Gold. PS3 was able to survive its entire life with free online, so them demanding you pay for it still continues to be fucking offensive and was even more so at that time. Same with charging for DLC, like when they demanded Valve charge for the L4D maps, which should have been either free or buyable with Achievement Points (giving them some value beyond braggarts). While full games are fine to charge, map packs should never have been paid for.
That's all in the past so its meaningless now, especially as those last two points they managed to corrupt the industry into following their example and becoming the standard.
As for now? I don't think its salvagable. You'd need a lot of "must have" games to sell consoles to people, and then AA games can start being produced for it by having a decent install base. They've shown they aren't able to get those level of games anymore (and PS5 has shown no console really is), so attaching themselves to the Box itself is a sinking ship.
Gamepass is a really good thing, and I think if its stable profit wise they should keep focusing on that. If they can move a lot of their catalogue to it and make them all backwards compatible I think it can become a "must have" streaming service. But that's the only real future I can see for them short of a radical change.