@trunkswd
@Geralt99

Some weeks ago, I've started doing some own calculations based on Microsoft's financial reports and YOY changes.

My first 'vanilla' numbers I received indicate the Xbox Series sell-through estimates could still be overtracked by 2.27m units.

My shipment numbers indicate 29.4m units shipped as of 31st December, 2023.

Of course, there's sadly just no way to confirm or deny due to the lack of official shipment or sell-through numbers data.

I guess my question to both you number wizards is:

Would you rather tend to agree or disagree on an overtracking of the Series data as of today and the numbers you know?

Your 29.4M shipment estimate at the end of 2023 would end up being ~31M at the end of June 2024. Once the Americas data comes in we will have Xbox Series X|S sell-through estimates at ~29M, for a difference of ~2M between shipped and sold. A gap of 1M-3M between shipped and sold is pretty typical. Generally the better a console is selling the bigger the gap is (unless there are shortages) as they need to get more stock out there to keep up with demand and it takes many weeks to ship consoles around the world.

For example, Sony has PS5 sell-through at 56M at the end of FY23, which ended March 31, 2024 (likely rounded, so could be 55.50M-56.49M), compared to "more than 59.2 million" shipped. That is a gap of 2.7M-3.7M.

PS5 sell-through on Page 14 - https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/business_segment_meeting/pdf/2024/GNS_E.pdf

PS5 shipment - https://sonyinteractive.com/en/our-company/business-data-sales/

Without more data it is impossible to know if we've overtracked/undertracked the Xbox Series X|S. We get enough data to be relatively close in the Americas, Europe, and Japan. But we get limited data for RoW that requires us to extrapolate a lot of the estimates for our RoW countries/regions. That is mainly mainland Asia, Middle East, and Africa.

I would LOVE for Microsoft to give us quarterly shipment figures, but they don't. If they ever gave us hard data we would adjust our estimates to be as accurate as possible. The most data we got was from an ID@Xbox presentation in June 2023 that had the Xbox Series X|S at 21M+, and Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One combined at 79M+. That put Xbox One at ~58M lifetime. What we don't know is the exact date for the data and if that is shipped or sold. It is possible the data is from the end of the previous quarter (March 2023) or possibly it was the latest data from sometime in June 2023.

Is 600k-800k Wii U levels of sales or is it still higher?

per what ? quarter ?

@trunkswd

Thank you very much for your very detailed answer. I appreciate it alot!

Of course, there's a very high chance my calculations are wrong/mistaken at some point in the line.

I figured that I could actually add ±15-25% in the Series data - which is actually insane to me having to point out a possible deviation of that magnitude of a range when it comes to tracking data.

So, yeah, I definitely had alot of moments too during my calculations, when I thought about how "silly" it is to calculate with all these shallow numbers Microsoft (as a software company) isn't tracking or sharing in detail publically.

I can't wait for the next Circana/Americas data neither by the way.

And thank you very much again!

yeah, per quarter

Yes.  That is Wii U territory.  

MS has to be looking heavily at either a new console sooner than planned or (and more likely) migrating all support to PC and going full 3rd party.

Pretty much yeah; putting their first party games on Playstation effectively kills all reason to buy an Xbox, and with it their hardware business. 

Unless something drastically changes, which is looking increasingly unlikely, I expect the next Xbox will be the last and will probably sell Wii U to Gamecube numbers.

If not maybe they'll go back on their word and have no proprietary hardware to show for the next generation. Flip flopping on various issues in the last half of the year tend to make me believe hardware plans could change on a whim by the higher execs.

Not to mention. New hardware wouldn't come before maybe 2026 it seems meaning the numbers for the Series could still fall through during 2025.

True; I didn't consider that, but with the way sales are cratering it is entirely possible that they abort their plans for a next gen Xbox. I hope they don't, as I don't think it would be good for consumers to have only one option for dedicated console gaming, but at this point, I just can't see any way to salvage Xbox, it's been run into the ground so hard it's currently situated somewhere in the Earth's mantle.