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mutantsushi on 21 July 2017
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fleischr said:

Say XBX is a flash in a pan. It sells good its first holiday, but by spring/summer 2018 PS4 overall is still #1, Switch remains very competitive globally, and Xbox One sales overall (S +X) are still flat /down YoY throughout 2018. XBX in holiday 2018 sales growth remains flat.
Obviously MS would have already failed to fix their weak sales with new, more powerful hardware. 
With Xbox overall, you obviously have a user base still hanging on out there, but what do you do about your rivals outpacing you?

So in other words, your scenario is what most people expect to happen. Answer: nothing changes.
MS Xbox division's existence and profits do not depend on outselling Sony. 
Sony can increase their sales 10X and MS will still be doing the same as far as they are concerned re: Xbox.
It is not a Roman Colisseum gladiator death match that hinges on the outcome of who "beats" who.
AFAIK Xbox is doing well compared to previous gen (launch aligned), and has been consistently profitable per console (vs RROD etc).
If it ends up a globally limited brand that only does well in provincial, backward USA, well so be it, there's still $ to be made there.

pokoko said:
Xbox is still a brand with value in North America. The people where I work only talk about "playing Xbox". It's not like it's irredeemable.
When I remarked on my workplace being Xbox-land, my co-worker said, "Playstation is mostly just sports games." I'm not making that up. When I said something about Playstation having a lot of Japanese games, he just looked at me in confusion. He was probably thinking, "how could I play a game in Japanese, you idiot."

Haha. Imagine telling him there are plenty of PS gamers who play neither sports games nor "Japanese" games.
But for sure, plenty of people are happy playing Xbox, particularly in MS' core markets.
And while people looking at big picture now see Sony as dominant console of the gen, people living in Xbox bubble don't necessarily.

For them, or their friends who are just now buying a current gen console, Xbox is the majority brand you buy to play with your friends.
That doesn't hold on a global scale, where many more people view PS that way, but it CAN be true in Xbox dominant markets.
Likewise, Xbox fans tended to over-estimate 360's dominance because if Xbox fans tended to live in 360-dominant countries.
(and merely conversing in English language is factor which skews the sample towards Xbox-friendly markets)
And in the big picture, that is fine, because "the global trend" is irrelevant to people's enjoyment of the games they choose to like.