That's a good point about the digital collection thing. I always knew the Xbox One pre-release debacle was the fatal mistake for Xbox, but that helped further solidify it for me.
It's a shame since I like the Xboxs and their exclusives, and like you think the seeds were there for a potential comeback if done right, especially with all those major acquisitions a few years back. But with Gears now on Playstation, all I need to see is Halo do the same to know that they well and truly are on the way out of the hardware biz ala Sega.
If this is "horrific" to him, I wonder how he'd react to, like, A Serbian Film