He is trying
sooo hard right now, it's almost sad. Like, he's here saying the CESA data from 2020 for XB1, at the 72% ratio claimed (btw, was 58 million XB1 actually confirmed by Microsoft themselves or leaked data from the FTC hearing? I can't exactly recall), is 100% applicable to Series S and X. Implying as if the 2020 CESA data for XBS only represents 72% of XBS sales globally.
But what Welfare is failing to understand, is that in the case of XB1 those were EOL sales, and that platform (despite declining vs. 360) had a far healthier market presence overall than Xbox Series have had, especially when you compare the state of their ecosystems launch-aligned. Yes XB1 struggled out the gate, but it actually had a competitive presence until early 2017 in NA & UK which is when PS4 started clearly taking over (in that sense, mirroring PS1 vs Saturn in Japan). XB1 also did better in virtually every other market that both it and XBS have been available in, when launch-aligned. The only exception might be Japan, but that's saying piss-all when you look at the hard numbers.
That fact alone, combined with XBS only being little over halfway the typical cycle time, means you can't apply XB1's CESA sales data ratio vs. final XB1 numbers, to XBS's CESA 2022 vs. what you (Welfare) want to claim that is a representative percentage of. And we all know the reason why they're so against the lower estimates, but I don't need to say it.
If XBS were above 34 million in sell-through right now, especially if they were near 40 million like some people imagine, that'd suggest sales pacing healthier than the drops Amy Hood's been giving for the past 12-18 months in fiscal reports. And it's ridiculous he's bringing up China as a potential "hidden growth market" for XBS when momentum for Xbox in Asia at large is practically deal. Did Xbox not miss out on the biggest-selling Chinese release of last year, Black Myth Wukong? If even PlayStation's market share in China is rather small compared to PC gaming, in what reality do you think an Xbox that went without BMW for a whole year is going to see anywhere near the sales bump PS5 saw? Anywhere near enough sales in China to be a big enough contributor to more Xbox sales globally?
You know what, I am actually just going to say it: the degree I see some of these people aggressively trying to bark back against reasonable claims of XBS being < 30 million or at best near that number (in sold-through), feels like these people aren't doing that simply to preserve an accurate record of events. Part of it feels like remnants within them yearning for a time when Xbox was actually competitive as a console, and they know consoles sold was one of the main metrics used to prove that during the 360 and early XB1 years. They want
THAT Xbox back which is why they're in such denial about these low XBS estimates, even though no matter if it's < 30 million or close to 40 million, XBS' fate as a console is still the same. It's still a poisoned brand in the gaming space, and throwing on a few million console sold won't get Microsoft to renege on their publishing games onto PS5 or Switch 2. It won't solve the fundamental problems that forced MS to become a multiplat publisher-focused games company in the first place.