Back in Jan. I used to think, it would get above 40m.
Now 3-4 months lateron, I'm not actually sure anymore.
I might just fall below that 40m mark, before its all said and done.

Like that thread on here "Will Xbox Series X/S make it to 40 million?", it's starting to look likely it wont.

https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread/248160/will-xbox-series-xs-make-it-to-40-million/

Quarter update! Vote who hasn't and lay down your opinions on the matter, since the recent price hike.

About 38 million. GTA VI from 2026 onward might add 1 million or so units to the total but it's clear the Series is lost at sea.

Crazy to see Xbox SX selling Wii U numbers now at 30k a week. The Wii U in its peak used to sell around 30k a week. Crazy to see how far Xbox has fallen and their exit from the console space will come sooner rather than later.

Really the only thing that will somewhat give this a boost in the future in gta 6, but outside of that I dont see much of a future that'll make it a competitive console.

I do not see any possible way for XBSXS to surpass 40mil. The price hikes have ended any chance of this. How can a system seeing massive YoY drops — that is currently selling on par with Wii U — manage to cobble up 6.7mil more systems? Well…unless Sony does a price hike on their system. (Though even that wouldn’t do much to help XBSXS specifically with the launch of GTAVI. Sony now has the economical advantage.)

Under 30 million according to leaker Kepler_L2 which make more sense.
https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/comments/1mgijwx/keplerl2_xbox_xs_hardware_has_sold_less_than_30/

Cerny is a smart dude.
The fact that the PS5 was much cheaper to make than the XSX is now paying off.
Even if on paper the series X was like ~20% higher, in terms of actual theoretical performance it didn't really show in games most of the time.

There is were perhaps saving like +50-100$ on BOM making the device is paying off in spades (compared to the XSX).

Hmmm...
Also intresting about the PS5 (base unit) sales being sold at a tiny loss, while the XSX is now after the raised prices just reached profitable range.

Yeah if the "real" number of Xbox Series sold is around 29-30m range (probably just slightly below) (ei. 3m+ overtracked here)....
There is just no way its hitting 40m lifetime.

MS's intention was for the XBSS to be the competitor to the PS5 and have the XBSX as a luxury high end alternative. Exactly the same as Xbone - PS4 and Xbone X to PS4 Pro. Problem is, is that the XBSS backfired horribly and it never really qualified as a "next gen" in people's eyes. It just isn't very popular or in demand regardless of how cheap they made it. The only competitor they had left to PS5 was XBSX but that console was never intended to compete with PS5 and if they priced it the same as PS5 they'd be losing a boat load of money

And the problem is that as far as I'm aware the only superior tech visible to the average person in a Series X is Quick Resume. But so does Series S, so that's pretty irrelevant in a Series X to PS5 power comparison. 

There was absolutely no reason to make Series X a little more powerful than PS5 if there's really no advantages to the consumer. The pricing recently too has screwed Xbox Series especially if Sony doesn't raise the prices of PS5 consoles. 

I truly wonder if a refresh launched midlife of Series that was in-between a Series S and X (and cheaper than X) would've helped. 

I think the only thing that could've helped is if MS just gave you an XBSS for free if you signed up for Gamepass for 1- years. Or, if MS made deals with other corpos where you get a series s for free if you sign up for a year of their subsription services too. Yeah, they'd have lost a lot of money but it would've been the only way for it to be successful. 

I think the bottom line is that, MS just hasn't cared about the console player for awhile. Why charge more for console Gamepass if you value console players?