I just provided 3 examples where Microsoft did not reveal that stat in the earnings call.
I should've noted this before, but the only time they do is when they are reporting their full Fiscal Year report in July. FYQ4 2021 and FYQ4 2022 is when they say XBS is the fastest selling Xbox.
If Microsoft does not state this in July 2023 when they did for the past two years, I'll concede XBS fell behind.
Fair enough. But wouldn't you still say it's kind of strange they haven't had any PR regarding sales even outside of the earnings call? Like you said earlier, they did so last year aside from earnings calls, why did they stop? I know those times coincided with winning NPDs, but IMO they don't have to win NPDs to just even communicate they're ahead of XBO in terms of sales.
That would even potentially be beneficial.
Microsoft's 63.7M is bullshit because the PS number 151.4M they give is also bullshit. They never defined what "install base" meant and we have PS4 and PS5 shipment data that comes in well below the number Microsoft shared. 134.1M is 17.3M less than what Microsoft provided and we know it can't include Vita as CESA data shows it only sold 10.7M between NA, western and northern Europe, and Japan.
But that means MS directly lied to regulators, which isn't a good look at all. Because as I remember it, they put that out to indicate their market share at the end of 2021 relative Sony & Nintendo, in order to look more favorable for the ABK acquisition.
They did overshoot Sony's numbers, but I've accepted that they were also including late PS3 sales numbers into the figure. Although I can't image those accounted for a lot, so maybe they were also including PSVR and PS Vita sales, too? I think Vita did ~ 16 million, and PS5 was at what, around 17.3 million by end of 2021. PS4 was around 116 million IIRC so combined that's ~149.3 million between the three, very close to the numbers of Sony Microsoft provided.
And again, there are PS3 sales there too between 2013 and 2021, so I guess those would add in as well. So I don't actually think MS's 63.7 million was BS because if it was, then that'd be them openly lying and I don't think they would want to do that to regulators. So if that number's also right, then I am going to guess they included Series, XBO and late 360 sales. It gets messy if they left out 360 numbers because then it still makes it look like they lied by using certain metrics for one group's numbers but not their own.
XB1 is also over 50M, not around it. Dan Ahmad said it was over 50M by the end of 2019 and it would've shipped 2-3M in 2020. My own shipment estimates going off revenue line up with that. Where did that 3.9M 360 come from? I'd estimate it actually shipped 4.9M from 2014 to 2016.
The 3.9 million comes from Statista; I took 2013 to 2016 numbers and added them together. So yeah, I cut off 2017 and later, but again I am going by what I believe are sold-through estimates, not sold-in. Also, I don't think there's a singular agreement as to where exactly XBO's lifetime numbers are at. We have MS's vague "less than half PS4" which I guess at the time would've put them at under 58 million, but you do see the problem this presents if it's AT 58 or so million, right?
It basically disputes the 63.7 million number MS gave, meaning again either MS lied (in that case to regulators), or threw out legacy hardware sales and had some arbitrary cutoff leaving out some Series sales, but didn't leave out legacy Sony hardware or odd cutoffs for Sony's numbers...which essentially would be them lying, anyway. Most other analysts I've seen have given XBO totals of around 50 million; either a tiny bit below, or a bit higher, but never too high.
Also, I do think when it comes to Xbox it's important to not rely so much on the shipped numbers, because we really don't know what volume of those are getting into customer homes. It's not like the XBO had particularly strong demand in most markets, so it's entirely possible some systems have just been sitting around, getting gradually marked down to cheaper prices to be sold through various retailer stores and sites and that could have been going on for years.
Once again, since they began reporting quarterly figures for PS5 and XBS, Ampere has only been reporting sell through estimates. We have statements straight from Microsoft that reveal the US and UK take up less share of total sales for the XBS compared to XB1 since Q2 2021. ROTW share is objectively better for XBS than XB1, it can't be argued.
Just gonna say I don't buy MS's words here, to be frank, not until there's more concrete data. I know Series did launch in more markets from the outset than XBO did, and by that metric those words would be accurate. But even if US & UK take up less of the share, there is nothing from MS indicating by how much. It could be as little as 1% less, for all we know.
From what I calculated earlier in the thread, US & UK accounted for roughly 75% of total XBO sales, leaving ROTW with a little under 25%, most likely. And in fact the numbers I estimated from there include a bigger ROTW share by 5% growth. The thing though is that is still less than what ROTW contributed to 360's sales, and it would still mean US & UK are making up the majority of Series sales.
Conversely, for PS5 we have the leaked NPD numbers which were somewhere between 10.2 million - 10.5 million (I can't specifically recall); and they already officially reached 2 million sales by October last year in the UK. Might be fair to say they moved another 250K between Nov & December there. I remember Dring saying the sales gap between PS5 and Series in UK was "very close" but I also think that was in relation to 2022. I could be misremembering on that one, though.
Anyway, at some 12.7 million low-end between US & UK, and PS5 clearing 30 million by January, even at 30 million exactly those two markets would comprise of about 42% of total PS5 sales. PS's always been a more global brand than Xbox, even in the 7th gen when Xbox was at its most global. Considering some of the sales differences we see between the two platforms in select non-US/UK markets, I don't think an almost 2:1 ROTW ratio favoring PS is all that wild to say. And that's, again, with considering ROTW growth for Series over XBO (where it contracted severely from 360).
I was there when all these reports and financial results were going out for Xbox from 2014 to today. The 18M figure is units that connected to the internet. EA estimates for 2015 point to 19M XB1 (55M total, 35.9M confirmed PS4).
How would EA have had those figures? And are the EA estimates sold-in or sold-through (for XBO)?
As I said above, the numbers provided by MS were BS and in terms of what I'm talking about, Microsoft has always been referring to shipments when talking about XBS being the fastest selling. It can also refer to sold through, but the safest assumption is to go with shipments first, then work out sold through.
Wait if that's the case, then that may make some of the sold-through estimates ITT too high. I HAVE to think they were referring to sold-through when mentioning Series being fastest-selling; the fact they referred to April being a record month in unit & dollar sales suggests this. XBO had the highest revenue for an Xbox for that month, while 360 had the highest unit sales (~ 450K). All of that has to be referring to sold-through, not sold-in.
The fact those statements were coinciding along with Greenberg's VGChartz retweet, knowing VGChartz tries (and fails) to measure sold-through amounts, has to suggest that the 63.7 million figure MS put out was in fact sold-through. The question is did they include late-life 360 sales numbers or not, and did they keep the methodology consistent for Sony (meaning PS4, PS5, late-life PS3 & PS Vita) and Nintendo (meaning Wii U & Switch) sold-through amounts in that same data?
And again, Ampere's 10.5M XBS 2021 figure is sold through. For 2020 they had XBS at 2.8M (US was 1.49M, 53% of total) and for 2021 they had 7.7M (US was 3.73M, 48% of total). This decreased US share lines up with Microsoft's confirmed data that says XBS was ahead of XB1 after the first year despite US sales being a whole 1M behind! UK was also behind 300K
XB1 US LTD 2014: 6.19M
XBS US LTD 2021: 5.20M
XB1 UK LTD 2014: 1.47M
XBS UK LTD 2021: 1.16M
So 1.3M behind in Xbox's two largest markets, yet XBS is ahead of XB1 worldwide. That would mean by 2021, ROTW was making up more than 1.3M additional sales than before.
I think the thing here is you think I'm saying Series hasn't seen growth in ROTW in terms of unit sales, but I haven't actually disputed that idea. My claim is, that share for ROTW growth is not some wild +10% gain or what-have-you, and ROTW share would still be less than it was during 360.
With the Ampere numbers you provided, yes ROTW would have accounted for 41% of total sales...up to that point! But we both know that both Sony & MS went through some issues with supply in the back half of 2021, Sony was just much more affected. We also know that in 2022, MS were heavily prioritizing the US & UK markets with stock, and we've seen the significant drop-off in sales in territories like Japan, which could be partially blamed on lower supply (though IMO at this point, feels it's at least slightly more due to lowering demand, but that's a completely different topic).
It's entirely possible given MS's focus on the US & UK markets for supply throughout 2022, alongside softening demand in some ROTW territories, that ROTW amounts in the share of sales shifted sharply in the span of that year or so. Also it's again worth stressing XBO launched in less markets than Series did, so MS having some boost in available markets would have naturally helped ensure those markets could cover supply shortfalls in their strongest territories.
Let's just say for math's sake XB1 and XBS are exactly 10M after the first year.
XB1 US+UK: 7.66M (76.6%)
XB1 ROTW: 2.34M (23.4%)
XBS US+UK: 6.36M (63.6%)
XBS ROTW: 3.64M (36.4%)
That's a whole 13% gained for ROTW which is actually a low ball estimate since we were only assuming XBS = XB1 and not the factual XBS > XB1.
Historical figures or trends mean literally nothing this gen. This is a post pandemic world.
XBS sell through will be around 19M. Shipments higher than that, just like XB1.
I wouldn't say historical figures and trends mean nothing; they are very helpful in fact because we can use them to extrapolate likelihoods going forward, or at least analyze what has occurred to try arriving at what factors led to so much delineation.
That said I would also not write off the fact that whatever percentage of a swing ROTW saw in accounting for sales in 2021, could have depreciated in 2022 considering it would seem MS heavily prioritized the US & UK markets (US in particular) for most of that year, and weren't working with significantly more supply. If Series turns out are tracking ahead XBO by FY 2023 Q4 and comfortably so, that doesn't really mean they could not have in fact been tracking slightly behind by end of 2022 calendar. It would just mean between then and June, the sales picked up considerably.
Which is what I would hope would happen but, we've got some months to see what happens in that case.
