It's not a tale. It's actual facts. If you and others actually look up all that shit like I did, you would come to the same conclusion. Third party games never sold on Xbox pre-Game Pass despite so many believing that they did. If anything, it's people who are anti-Game Pass wanting to make it out like it's the reason for lower sales in regards to third party games when the reality is that they didn't sell even during the Xbox 360 generation which was between 4 and 12 years earlier than when Game Pass was created in June 2017.
Your essay gets an F.
It demonstrates limited understanding of how sales are broken down per region, citing global lifetime sales figures and ratios and ignoring the stated UK PS5 : XBX/S ratio in your argument.
It grossly overestimates the Windows Store sales percentage, then combines that overestimate with the Xbox sales percentage, while simultaneously downplaying the PlayStation sales because they're combined.
It also ignores the reality that Xbone software sales are too low to be worth releasing a game for despite having a much higher userbase than XBX/S, which should be of immense concern and which should have clued you in to one other fact:
Sales for a game do not scale and have never scaled linearly with hardware sales. Userbases on healthy consoles are diverse and few games have universal appeal.
It ignores observed purchasing behaviours in Japan for RE4, where the split between PS5 and PS4 is roughly even but in PS5's favour, and indeed ignores reported splits between last and current gen consoles belonging to the same family in the UK, where PS5 tends to lead despite having a fraction of PS4's install base. This is consistent across console manufacturers and generations.
It claims 325k to 200k isn't bad, but this again ignores that the split in this fictional scenario would be a damning 1.6 : 1 vs a console split of 1.2 : 1, and honestly I would expect the rebuttal to claim this is a positive despite the author's other claim that PS4 outsold Xbone 3:1 prior to gamepass, with all evidence pointing to PS5 doing better against XBX/S than PS4 did against Xbone, and further evidence (admissions from MS) that GP cannibalises game sales. Do you think GP is making Xbox software more competitive?? The 3:1 ratio you're trying desperately to disprove is the same as one you readily admit has happened in a past generation.
Finally, it grossly over exaggerates Xbox Series sales (~20mil is a good estimate, anywhere near 25mil is absurd).
it will be funny to watch when PS4/PS5 outsells PC.
