I think you hit the nail on the head with the 'finger in ears' observation, lol.

The 360 was a slow burner at first, so comparisons to the first couple of years of 360 are REALLY misleading. Add to that supply issues and the wait for a 'killer' game (eg; Gears/Halo), and 360's first couple of years aren't too hard to beat to be honest.

YoY, the 360 accelerated over the years, and had a nice second wind with Kinect1. It also had the advantage of being able to drop price by quite a lot from launch, just as PS3 did as well. Each price drop into a wider-audience realm obviously pays off.

With X1, they've already lowered the price rather severely (price of entry, the most important $ value). $299 is possible, $249 and beyond are probably far off if ever.

Global sales are nearly nil for X1, it's almost all US/UK. 360 achieved a moderate success in mainland Europe, but X1 seems to be falling seriously short by comparison.

You also have the effect of 'superfans' built up over the 360 era, the hardest-core MS fans (just as there are for any company), that will buy in at almost any price for anything with the brand attached to it. The 360 didn't start its life out with a big supply of these, but by the X1 launch, there were a core group of superfans that were ready to jump in at $499 launch and no game. Same as PS superfans jumped into PS3 for $599, lol. But that group gets used up on launch, and then you have to appeal to the masses. 360 succeeded in this. X1 will only moderately succeed.

But ther is official MS shipment data for 2007 and 2015 and it completely invalidates what you've said.

Xbox 360 shipments: Jan 1-June 30 2007 - 1.2M TOTAL

Xbox 1 & Xbox 360 Shipments combined: Jan 1 - June 2015  - 3 MILLION TOTAL

So yeah, I think we'd all love to hear how the 360s 1.2 M shipped backs up your supposed 5 Million sales advantage over i'd guess around 2.5M Xbox One shipments.

You have 23 minutes left to counter this with proof.

Over an 8 year generation...why not?

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/479142/money/companies/sony-posts-1-06b-fiscal-year-loss

Their most recent yearly report denotes a loss in excess of $1B ...again.

That was a few months after they said they were "on track" to post a $500M profit. Literally the same thing they've been saying since 2012. And back then they had $12-13B in the bank.

After the above, Sony have $5B left. Or 5 years (or less) with similar "profit" margins before administration kicks in.

Be freaking realistic. XB1 will not break 20M this year, so your whole math is fubar....

Quote me on this, but I bet you they will not break 18.5M by the end of the year, and considering thats 3 holiday seasons your > 10M a year math makes NO SENSE.

I'm still waiting for a few more pieces to the puzzle before I commit to a definite conclusion but I think there's enough to make this a worthwhile possibility to discuss. If MS start constantly advertising Windows on the XB1 and then constantly talk about how easy it is the port PC games to the XB1 because of Direct X 12 then I'm going to give it even more credibility. For this transition to take place smoothly, MS would have to placate their userbase and get them agreeing with the strategy. What people are overlooking at the moment is the whole direct 12 thing works both ways. Any title made for the XB1 will be compatible with a Windows 10 PC. Once this is realised and more titles start appearing more or less immediately on the PC too, it would diminish the need for an XB1. MS can then slowly move their development over to the PC and just port games to the XB1, but the main focus could be PC. 90% XB1 - 10% PC, 70% XB1 - 30% PC, 50% XB1 - 50% PC, and so on. A smooth transition with the XB brand becoming a PC brand in the same way MS tried to make LIVE a PC brand. Once all is equal and the XB/LIVE brand is fully established on the PC ... That could be it for the console XB brand.

You still haven't explained how the Xbox One is simultaneously behind Xbox 360 by 5 Million in sales, despite shipping double the 360 in the same period and how it's at 8 million sold, despite passing 10 million 9 months ago.

Anyways, based on official MS shipment data.

Xbox 360 sold 17.7 Million consoles in 25 and a half months

Xbox One outshipped Xbox 360 in 2013/2005 by 2.4 million units  - (3.9M to 1.5m)

Xbox One undershipped Xbox 360 in Q1 2014/2006 by 0.5 million units  - (1.2M to 1.7m)

Assuming the Xbox 360 was 20-25% of all shipments (as reflected by NPD sales...because the Xbox 360 only sold in the US and UK right?)

Xbox One likely undershipped Xbox 360 in Q2 2014/2006 by 0.9 million units  - (0.9 M to 1.8m) (360 200k)

Xbox One likely outshipped Xbox 360 in Q3 2014/2006 by 0.9 million units  - (1.9M to 1.0m) (360 500k)

Xbox One likely outshipped Xbox 360 in Q4 2014/2006 by 1.1 million units  - (5.5M to 4.4m)(360 1.1M)

In 2015 thus far Xbox One likely outshipped Xbox 360 in 2015/2007 by 1.3 million units  - (2.5M to 1.2m)(360 500k)

The Xbox One has gained 5.7M sales over the 360 and lost 1.4M to it, leaving us a 4.3M advantage

As of June 30 2007, Xbox 360 had sold 11.6 million, so Xbox One is around 15.9M shipped same time in 2015.

15.9M in 19 and a half months vs 17.7M in 25 and a half months

Last year in Q3 & Q4 MS shipped 7.4M Xbox Ones, if they did the same this year, LTD Jan 1st 2016 would be 23.3M

If they only shipped 360 2007 numbers (6.1m) , they would sell 22M.

Phil spencer says the Xbox One momentum is up over last year....so there you are. I must say you will certainly go quite far to argue a piddly 2.3M difference (17.7m to 20m) when the XB1 sold that much more in the launch quarter

Because the combined userbase of the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii (Which was also the fastest selling console Nintendo had released, and the fastest selling console of all time...) over a 8 year generation was 270 million. You are expecting XBO + PS4 alone to make up 250 million? mkay

Have you heard of a writedown? It's when you adjust the estimated value of a brand, however you don't lose any tangible assets. Sony had a writedown of 1.7 billion dollars in their mobile division last year, without that one time cost, they would've made a 0.6 billion profit. Microsoft had a 7 billion writedown in their mobile division in the last fiscal quarter, which means that they also "lost" about 2 billion last quarter, but in reality they made money last quarter, just like Sony, in reality, made money last year. Sony are on track to post well over a billion in profit this fiscal year, in fact they posted a 687 million dollar profit this last quarter.

Don't think they are throwing the towel yet, but they are definitly covering their bases by expanding to the PC and taking advantage of their strong point wich is windows.
I do think that they might just stop with consoles, but they will take the One as far as possibe and see how the PC business grows. For them, beeing on PC means they don't have to compete with Sony.

I doubt they're getting ready to drop Xbox, it seems more like they're just trying to expand into being more than just a console though. They want it to be a whole ecosystem.

Xbox One will still get its exclusive games like Scalebound, Recore, Gears of War 4, etc in order to push console sales and keep the Xbox One relevant. But it seems like they'll just be expanding. Then at the same time they can be making money off of games that go on Xbox One and Windows 10 together, and now that they have the Havok engine that means they'll be making a shit ton of more money if they decide to license it out to everyone else.

Microsoft is probably going to be a bigger part of the industry than ever before this generation with how much they are expanding what they do. They already own some of the most successful IPs ever and now with things like Havok being bought they will also have some of the best engines ever. 

I think they just realized PC gaming is very lucrative and they want a piece of it.

Pretty sure most PC gamers laugh at that Prospect... :P

Steam is loved by the PC community, Microsoft not so much after Games for Windows Live! And it's various fiasco's. (DRM, Consolized UI, Not supported, High Pricing, then shutting it down after it flopped.)

But the PC market is very lucrative. Without it, you wouldn't have PC gamers funding the hardware that goes into consoles and the new shiny technologies to go with it.

Microsoft has a massive amount of work to do, to win over PC gamers... Free games wouldn't hurt. (Games with Gold for Windows?)