The problem with Sony and Microsoft is that they have mismanaged their projects by inflating the hell out of the budgets, which also prevented them from doing any experimentation. Both of them have also kept buying whole studios without anything meaningful coming out of these buyouts, most of these studios ended up being disbanded. There is also this retarded mentality within the industry to fire your veterans (or make them leave) while they didn't have the chance to teach newer generations of devs.

Funny how Nintendo avoids all these problems though and still keep making exclusives.
To be fair, I've always considered to be some kind of underdog (wasn't fan of Halo anyway) but the real tragedy remains the evolution of Sony Interactive during the 2010s