The one thing this proves is that
@Heisenberg007 and I were right in our EOY '22 sold-through numbers for Series. It also proves Ampere's 20.5 million estimate was shipped, not sold-through.
FWIW, I pegged Series sold-through for EOY '22 to between 17-18 million. We can take MS's install base MAU data from the court proceedings and see that out of the 147 million PS4 + PS5 Sony shipped by EOY '22, 73% were active (as in they had active use of the systems through PS+, online-enabled games, etc.). Good reason to apply that same ratio to Xbox, which would mean 69 million shipped between XBO & Series by EOY '22.
Which does present a problem for this graph, because XBO #s are too high. So it's either Xbox has a notably lower percentage of active users compared to shipped systems, or Series shipments were well below all realistic estimates (we're talking you'd have to shift the 19 or so million down by 8 million!). Both can't simultaneously be true.
And WRT the 19 million shipped Series by EOY '22, we know some of that was with backed-up channels due to oversupply of Series S units (hence all the aggressive pricing discounts starting that summer to try shifting units), hence why I think sold-through was around 17-18 million, somewhere between there. Series has been tracking at OG Xbox levels for sold-through, OG Xbox did 6.2 million in its third year on the market. So being a bit north of 21 million at this point should be expected.
But yeah, something about those XBO numbers seems off. Those have to be shipped, meaning there must've been a lot left over once the system was discontinued.
Are you implying MS only shipped 1.2 million Xbox Series consoles over the past six months worldwide? That would mean they either massively overshipped Series consoles the year prior, or your shipments are wrong.
I find it a bit hard to believe MS over-shipped Xbox Series systems by such a large degree in the back half of 2022. That amount would've been enough for MS to shut down production for at least a quarter IMO to let old stock flush out. More likely, Series numbers of shipped were closer to the 20.5 million Ampere gave in their estimates earlier this year for EOY '22, and sold-through was closer to between 17-18 million.
And as for XBO, I'm just going to assume there were a lot of systems left in the distribution channels after discontinuation, but those could in large part be systems manufactured a few years prior, or others just in various warehouses sitting there. I genuinely think sold-through XBO numbers are a lot lower than 58 million otherwise Series sold-through numbers would've had to be even lower than 17 million by EOY '22.
FWIW I am also using MS's own provided global MAU totals between XBO/Series and PS4/PS5 they provided as evidence to the courts for the FTC trail. The latter were at 107 million out of a 147 million shipped, or 73% of total shipped. That same percentage for XBO/Series MAU (50 million) would mean shipped totals of 69 million by EOY '22.
So, assuming then their 79 million XBO/Series statement here is true, then MS's MAU ratio is lower than Sony's. Basically ~ 63% of all shipped XBO/Series systems contributing to the MAU there, vs 73% for Sony's MAU between PS4/PS5 (Sony's ecosystem having a more active userbase proportionally-speaking as well as in absolute terms, obviously).