Even with 4K TV sales on the rise, Xbox One X will only appeal to a narrow demographic, says David Cole

Microsoft put a huge focus on its upcoming Xbox One X during the company's E3 briefing, highlighting numerous 4K-enhanced titles among 22 games that will have at least temporary exclusivity on the Xbox One. While the system's $499 price tag will make it a tough sell, the Xbox One X should still manage upwards of 20 million units by 2022, according to DFC Intelligence.

The firm has today issued a new brief that forecasts 17 million units sold by the end of 2021. Those 17 million will bring the Xbox One family of systems up to 63 million, DFC says. It's worth noting that Sony's PlayStation 4 already stands at more than 60 million units sold worldwide, with the beefier PS4 Pro accounting for about 20% of sales since it launched late last year.

The problem for Xbox One X is that it's ultimately designed to cater to a demographic that's inherently quite small. "Xbox One X is an expensive system designed to appeal to a fairly narrow demographic of gamers who want high quality graphics but do not want to spend money on a high-end PC," says DFC analyst David Cole. "The challenge is that is a fairly small addressable market, even as sales of 4k television sets start to soar. Both the Nintendo Switch or Sony PlayStation 4 offer a very strong value proposition that consumers seem to be flocking to."

From the software side, DFC also found that 130 titles are expected to be released for Xbox One between now and 2018, and of those, 25 are exclusive but most will be available for the PC as well. Cole does not believe the exclusives will be a factor in overall hardware sales, however.

"Many of the exclusives are fairly minor indie titles that will probably not take advantage of the enhanced graphics features of the system," he says. "Furthermore, the leap from 1080 to 4k resolution is simply not as revolutionary as the previous movement from standard definition to high definition."

DFC's latest Xbox One X estimate comes as part of its larger global games industry forecast, which states that new hardware along with further growth in the mobile and PC sectors will drive the game industry to reach record sales of $102 billion this year, up 8% over 2016. More info on the report is available here.

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I honestly cannot see the Xbox One X to stay in production for four straight years.

Isn't that a great number? Based on vgchartz Xbox One is currently at 29 millions. And they forcast the xbox one family to be at 63 millions. Meaning they will have sold 34 millions Xbox one in the next 4 years where 50% of them are Xbox One X???

Depends. If the X drops by $50 per year by 2021 it will be $300 and most likely the main xbox by then. But for the first few years i dont expect it to have a lot of sales.
I think it can do 15m by the end of 2021.

15 million seems like a lot. I would say between 5 and 10 million if Microsoft does not pull support early.

Not unless than plan to lower the price

I'd be shocked if it sold anything close to that. And they are saying 'only?'

In 2020, Microsoft will release a new console and drop XOS support. Sales on that year will be 70% XOX, 20% New console and 10% XOS. In 2019, it will be 50% or more for XOX. 

2017: ~10%

2018: ~40%

2019: ~70% (Microsoft will stop producing Xbox One S)

2020: ~90%

But the Xbox one has been out for almost 4 years and it is just reaching 30m sales... they really think that a more expensive version of a machine people don't want is going to sell around the same figure in the next 4 years? that's insanity.

Makes me think the group DFC Intelligence is an oxymoron name.

Yeah that what i was thinking. Around 2019/2020 it will be the mainstream xbox si it will be getting most of the sales by then and the price will be down too.