Very true. I cannot argue with that.
...except I believe that it will only get worse over time, as VR will not go away. I guess that's where a lot of us differ. Some people think of VR as a fad, just as videogames were thought to be a fad in the 80s. I don't. I see them avoiding VR playing out baldy for Microsoft in the future, since they are purposefully being absent for something that will be even bigger than current games are now. In fact, you'll still be able to play flat games inside of VR and MR, so no loss. I personally have a 100" projector screen, but nobody else I know does. With MR, everyone will, since it's virtual. You can resist this change into mixed reality, but I really think it will be in the same way that some people of older generations still won't text or even use a smart phone at all. Of course, maybe I'm wrong? I just don't see it going any other way. AR games are gaining in popularity on phones right now. It's only a couple years at most when that becomes much simpler and better to just wear eyeglasses to do that. People are now very much expecting this. It's also not far away that these eyeglasses or goggles do both AR/VR properly, with natural focus. MSFT had better be there for the next phase or they will risk being very far behind, at least when it comes to the Xbox brand.
Of course, Microsoft is literally at the forefront of mixed reality, with Hololens/WMR coming out of a huge R&D facility that is Microsoft Research. I would think that Spencer still visits some of these projects that haven't even made it to the tech sites yet. If he's still not thinking "if not now, then definitely when the time is right", then he is already risking missing phase 2 with the Xbox name attached. When I try to think ahead and what it might be like looking back to now, I see VR support being very critical in the early phases. Kinect was not a failure because it didn't sell units. In fact, it sold ALOT of them! It failed because it was not the right product at the right time. It didn't make games immersive enough to give up more accurate controls. VR is becoming so immersive that the control is becoming vastly more accurate than either a controller or a mouse could ever dream of being without aim assist. VR interface speaks a language that we all learned as infants. This is why our learning retention is much higher through VR than any other method.
See reports of 80% VR vs 20% traditional training retention. Mixed reality is quickly entering our museums, schools, and workplaces. Games are gonna be played on all those new units in the wild. It's inevitable.