Original Xbox was financially a disaster (although it was good for gamers and the console world).

X360 was successful because of being at the right place, time, and price.
* It came out early
* It came out cheaper
* It came out with more games
* It came with lots of good publicity

A great deal of 360 customers (possibly more than half) were PS2 converts who didn't wait for a PS3, or simply thought 360 is just as good; some others bought 360 because of the network effects (their friends had bought it).

The Xbox Brand is only mildly strong in North America, and that's it. With the presence of Sony, at the same time, at the same place, at the same price, Xbox Brand will never sell as much. I had predicted long ago that Microsoft is LUCKY if XB1 can sell as half as much of PS4 (1 to 2). My exact estimate between XB1 and PS4 globally has always been 24-33% to 67-76% (in other words, PS4 will sell between 2 and 3.2 times as much as XB1).

That's not optimism or pessimism, that is REALISM, based on facts, history, and hard data.

You haven't been long here so you probably don't know that the X1 was doomed long before this. It's just necessary to refresh the doom every sales week.

I don't think the XB1 is doomed. Not in the least. Nor do I think people are wrongfully pessimistic. I mean so far the XB1 has managed to come short of every possible possible prediction that was made for it.

Realistically though, people will save themselves a lot of grief if they stopped looking at the XB1 as a pound for pound PS4 contender. If they accept that the lifetime XB1 sales will be around 40-60% lifetime PS4 sales then maybe things woould be easier to swallow.

Another way to look at all this is simply from a games perspective. Lets take say that every year 100 games are released. And of those 100 only 5-10 of them are exclusive. In relation to the PS4/XB1, it means that for the PS4, 90+ of the games released that year will run better on it. So unless you are really into the XB1 exclusives, there really isn't a reason to buy the XB1 over the PS4.

Halo won't help as much as it normally would because of Destiny. Specially outside of the US; PS owners who were jelly of Halo and got a 360 because of that no longer will get a XB1 for Halo when they have Destiny.

IMHO, i predict that XBOX ONE will sell 30% of total PS4 selling lifetime.

Even without comparing X1 will Ps4,X1 sale still not good

That's what you say!

I say they are not pessimistic enough!

Its going to sell well enough and is certainly a great console in its own right. It will be 2nd place, so overall I can't complain.

x1 will be 20-30mil life time. reason i say this is the ps4 is the clear winer and this is now a battle for second place. the winner of second place will be the system who can be the secondary console. very few people will have a ps4 and x1 because they are to similar and 90 percent of games are the same but run better on ps4. so by default the wiiu will win second and x1 will slowly sink into a distant memory.

I dont think this gen that the small countries are going to be able to sell as much this time around percent wise. Mainland europe has been completely ignoring the xbox one this time much more do than last time. The general consensus with the remaining countries is very much in line with germany, France, spain etc. It will get a decent launch increase of about 15 - 20 percent but will then be down to a maximum of 5 once the dust settles. The only places in the world where xbox one is competitive is north america and the UK