What would be useful would be for someone to dig up the NPD numbers for July,August and September 2017 and 2018 and post them here, that would clear things up

Shadow already did that, he gave this years Q3 numbers with YOY differences.

High quality exclusives matter.  It's why both Sony and Nintendo are enjoying success right now.  MS's seems to always put in a good effort at the beginning of the gen, but in the back half, they lessen support.  Especially when the gen doesn't go their way. 

Flat/small decline isn't good on the second full year no matter how much excuses we do for it.

If it is flat/small decline at the end of the year I will agree with you but I highly doubt that will be the case.

This is very similar to PS4 2014 vs 2015.

Jan-Oct

2014-~2.8 million

2015-~2.6 million

Nov+Dec

2014-~1.9 million

2015-~3.1 million

Total

2014-~4.7 million

2015-~5.7 million

Plus, ever since Halo and Gears of War regressed considerably in popularity due to the rise of CoD, Battlefield, and other FPS  franchises as the premier, go to first person shooters, Microsoft just does not have a franchise with the widespread, maintsream, truly blockbuster appeal beyond just their dedicated core audience like the other two do.
(MineCraft doesn't count since that's on everything.)
At this point, an exclusive franchise that's A-tier for Microsoft would be a B-tier for Sony and Nintendo. 
They really have to double down on 1st party if they want to expand their audience and appeal. They can't just count on the unlikely chance of Sony fucking up the PS5 reveal like they did themselves with the Xbox One. 

Well considering that Microsoft has bought like a half dozen studios this year alone, I would say they are doing just that.

Look , I get it that rick gets under your skin but while it's fine to critique his facts , telling him stuff like  tone down the dislike  does nothing toward engendering  honest debate what gives us the moral authority  to tell others  how to act, unless a person breaks the rules then moderation does it's thing, that person has the rights to his opinions especially when he isn't directing it at you specifically  and you reply to him.

Now I realise your a decent person and not intentionally bullying rick and he can exasperate people , but sometimes you have to step back and realise at the end of the day it's just opinions.

MY opinion is we all have a deep seated need to bring people to our way of thinking and because someone engages in what we see as negativity we have a tendency to react to that behavior not with optimism, by saying ok I disagree here's why, knowing full well that it may not change the othersides thinking now or in the future, the opposite can lead to feeling like we are not been heard so end up trying to change the person's behaviour after all our personality is ingrained into how we present and also whether they turnout  right or wrong we often  subconsciously form our facts to suit our opinion. 

You are absolutely right, one or another quarter (or even accumulated 3) flat decline may only show a transfer from sales among quarters due to lack of inventory, wait for pricecut, expectation for some specific game.

And sure there may be cases of a console flat or drop in second or third year to them peak very very high at 4 or 5 year, I just don't think it's likely and certainly would bring concern to the platform holder.

Saying that, Switch will probably end up with a healthy YOY growth at the end of the year.

People in vgc tend to be very sensible against critics towards what they like. So they jump to defensive and become aggressive very fast.

Quickrick may be very negative against Switch (that is totally POV as I haven't seem he saying anything bad about the console, he just expect sales on different spectrum than most Nintendo fans) but he doesn't disrespect people here.

When is the NPD for last mont