Console hardware by definition would get obsolete towards the end of their lifecycle.

Heck, even current gen games are falling down to 720p on PS5 and Series X (FF16, Jedi Survivor, Immortals of Aveum). Wouldn't that make Series X and PS5 mistakes too, given how poorly they're performing? Or is it that it's premature to write off anything when devs themselves are figuring out how to make games work well in the current gen?

Last gen was much more weak yet we found devs using the fixed platform to deliver games like God of War Ragnarok, Spider-Man Miles Morales, Ghost of Tsushima, The Last of Us Part 2, Gran Turismo 7. This tells us that netbook like consoles were able to still last a full generation and have great looking games, while competent current gen consoles are already struggling to maintain 1080p60. So maybe it's less about hardware and more about how the devs adapt to the constraints of a console, and right now they're overshooting their capabilities.

When last gen launched, people already called the hardware obsolete and weak. They were mistakes just like you're calling Series S one. However cross gen games are still coming out for them.

Series S in comparison is a lot of hardware for sub $300. So far we've seen the memory being a major bottleneck, CPU, GPU and SSD wise games are able to scale down.

I mean it can run Flight Simulator 2020, Cyberpunk 2077 at 60fps, Metro Exodus with several RT features at 60 FPS (albeit at 514p native res upscaled to 1080p ish). I wouldn't really call it a mistake if it's close to Nintendo Switch's price point. Sure there will be games that will demand more from the consoles, but the overlap of people really really wanting Baldur's Gate 3's splitscreen but on a sub $300 console is gonna be extremely small. Maybe the fate of this console would be that it is a failure for Split Screen/games with multiple scenes rendered at one time, but that's a niche IMO.

Given enough time and resources, if needed, Larian could very well bring split screen to Series S and optimize their engine further to handle act 3 better on lower end PCs.

Edit: I'm not saying there's nothing wrong and we should be foolishly optimistic. I'm saying that the mistake isn't the console hardware as much as the policies that MSFT might have kept and the amount of memory the OS takes on Series S. If relaxing on parity of split screen takes care of 99.99% of games, I guess that's alright. If and when we see every major game, first and third party, failing to be decent looking at 30fps, then yeah, I would agree that the console is so poorly balanced that it's impossible for devs to make games that are on PS5 and Series S.

It’s not archaic, more so for the Xbox version. You can use it as a Blu-ray player and to play old Xbox games