Two things, from my POV:
1.) Why would Xbox execs continue to earnestly listen to the very core fans that already enthusiastically helped lead the brand down the primrose path, uncritically supporting every botched move they’ve made for the last two generations, no matter what? (The ABK deal is the king of examples, but there are many, many others.)
2.) There will be no comeback for Xbox, as far as it being a leading hardware ecosystem. There’s simply no realistic win condition within the traditional framework: No future for the brand in consoles, obviously, but if they make an open PC, people will just buy games on Steam, and if they make a closed PC, it will be more niche than the Series machines by an order of magnitude.
If anything, they owe it to their fans to put their cards on the table and admit the position they find themselves in. They want core Xbox players to become PC players. They want to be fully third party. Considering the current conditions, that all makes sense. Cool. Say it, do it, and move forward. Enough waffling.