Seriously… How Did Xbox Last This Long?

[mutantsushi]

There isn´t a generic console-buying audience.
One could consider the entire world that audience, but it´s actually very fragmented.
And Xbox´s audience was/is concentrated in markets where it had been most successful.
In the US, ¨Xbox¨ had practically become the generic name for console.
(necessarily in the sense of lower-info and lower-engagement consumers - who are relevant when you are talking of mega-selling items)
So in that bubble, Xbox definitely was the ¨status quo¨ expectation that had sales inertia, including thru generations.
Obviously outside this bubble / in ¨the world as a whole¨ things were different, but that information is muted to consumers in this bubble.
Additionally, it seems clear to me that Xbox has ALWAYS done disproportionately well early in it´s generation, while lagging later on.
Whether that is Xbox specific, or just specific to the audience in these ¨Xbox bubble¨ markets which Xbox focused on, I can´t really say.
But it clearly had it´s appeal to early gen adopters, which means it gets established as more relevant than it´s long term market share justifies.
This gen also had chip shortages which Xbox benefitted from both on having already signed deals, and Series S being easier to produce.