Even though they are discontinued doesn't mean all the consoles are sold. There will still be a stock of them that will get them to the 40 million mark... hopefully.

I would hope Microsoft continues the consoles but give us the ability to boot windows on xbox so we can have steam as well. The 9th generation consoles still haven't been pushed to their limit yet.

Xbox series X/S is selling like a console that is about to be replaced. I don't think Microsoft can wait out a PS6 release and launch their next hardware the same time as PS6 this time around. They need to go 1-2 years before the PS6 (And their next hardware is probably not a traditional console anyway).

That is the thing, Microsoft does not produce their consoles 5 years into the next console's life. Excluding the 360, all other consoles have been discontinued right after their next console launch. And selling or not after that does not matter since those console are already included in the latest sold/shipped numbers when they did stop manufactured them. For example XB1 shipped/sold around 58M. This number is as of end of 2020, when they stopped producing it. XB1 consoles continued to sell after that, but that was only the very last production line, that was already added to that 58M number, so that number didn't grow anymore. The same thing goes for the XBOX OG, and will go for the XBSX as well. PS4 too, it did 117.2M as of March 2022 was it ? And there may be selling till even now, but the number does not grow, since those units that are selling till now are the same they finally produced in that final quarter for the number to get to 117.2M. Whatever Xbox Series final number is at the end of 2026 or end of 2027 (when they decide to launch the next gen) that will be it's final number, despite being xbox series consoles on the shelves for 1 or 2 years after that. Therefore 40M is unlikely, since the Series won't get to 40M by end of next year, and if it's somehow stabilize it's sales it may have a chance of getting to 40M by end of 2027, (if they decide to launch the next gen then and therefore prolong the production of the Series consoles) but that is still debatable. It can go either way.

I think they will have to continue to sell xbox series consoles because the new xbox consoles are going to be ridiculously expensive. Also, just because you discontinue a console doesn't mean it isn't selling.

You obviously didn't understood what I wrote. Read that again and we will talk.

If they release a new console 2 years before PS6 it will need to be a completely different value proposition compared to current XBOX Series S/X

Simply not enough time has passed for them to have a generations leap that is affordable enough to justify a purchase. With a small user base and lack of exclusives that take advantage from the extra power I doubt a new console will sell a thing when their last generation purchase was so recent

It will be a Dreamcast scenario for Xbox

The idea of having a compact console to run windows is a good one, although I guess as anything new it can be a hard sell initially and take some years to have more significative adoption

You are misinformed I am afraid.

You are the misinformed.

In the 7th gen, the 360 outsold the PS3 by more than 50% (or more than 16 million consoles) in North America.

In May this year, PS5 outsold the Xbox Series by more than 3:1 in North America.

It's over.

XBO was discontinued in 2020. All models and fairly sure PS4 models have been quietly discontinued.