EDIT - Aug 11 NPD numbers indicate the 3DS is ahead of X1 for July. Given than VGC tracks X1 between 40 and 50k first 2 weeks of July, X1 is probably slightly overtracked. 3DS undertracked - at least for July.
Surveying the last several months, the Xbox One and 3DS have pretty regularly swapped the #2 spot in hardware.
Considering the 3DS has been out 2, nearly 3 years, longer than the Xbox One, that can be seen as an accomplishment for the 3Ds or sign of trouble for the Xbox One.
I'd consider it a bit both. Normally, comparisions like this would be met with "But the 3DS is a handheld! It's cheaper!" - but at this point, the X1 is consistently priced well below $300, even under $250 - not far off from the price point N3DS. Additionally, the X1 has consistently been cheaper than the PS4 this whole year and has not yet once really gunned for #1 HW spot globally.
One might say Xbox hardware revenues were down simply out of the fact the 360 has passed on and the lower price point of X1. But the 360's departure from the market shouldn't be taken as significant to hardware revenues - it was already pretty much done in 2015. Additionally, lower prices on X1 hardware itself ought to be creating significantly higher unit sales. It's not. We can pretty plainly see as consumers the X1 doesn't have the same churn as the PS4 given the continous aggressive price cuts. It makes the idea that X1 is selling in US competitively with the PS4 pretty dubious. It's for these reasons, that I think VGC is in fact overtracking the X1 by a decent margin - further widening the gulf between X1 and 3DS
Taken with the fact that Xbox One HW sales are at best flat - I think this spells an uncertain future for the Xbox One. Price cuts and new games haven't done much to boost it recently. The Xbox One S and Scorpio clearly are efforts to clean the slate. But are those efforts too little, too late? X1 continually lags further and further behind PS4. Even at $50+ price advantage to the PS4, the Xbox fails to consistently best a 5+ year old handheld in an era we consider the handheld gaming to be dying.
By the time Scorpio arrives, will the Xbox One brand even be relevant to consumers? If X1 can't scrape together better sales with lower prices and comparable game 3rd party support to PS4, how well is a hardware revision really going to fare?
The gulf between X1 and PS4 continually widens - but it could widen even yet further if the Xbox One S and Scorpio fail to be truly competitive with the PS4 Neo and NX. And at this point, that's looking pretty likely as it really appears Microsoft is really hedging their bets on X1 given the renewed focus on PC as well a drought of 1st party games and announcements.
I'm not going so far to say the Xbox One is doomed, but I think it has a long, troubled road ahead to having several more healthy, vibrant years. I still think it will outlast 3DS, but only on the basis of NX having some kind of handheld form.
I predict NX launches in 2017 - not 2016
