With only Europe December sales to add Xbox Series will have sold only around 4.9m-5m in 2024 globally according to vgchartz estimates. For comparison the XBO sold 9.1m in the equivalent year (2017). Sales are a little over HALF that of XBO, a console considered by many to be a failure.

The XBO worst full year sales while being the latest MS console on the market was 6.5m in 2019 and this year XBS is almost 25% lower than that. Hell the XBO sold 4m in 2020 despite XBS killing it's holiday. Xbox Series sales are so bad that it being discontinued by the end of the year isn't an impossibility, though the only scenario in which I see that happen is one where their next console hardware is also cancelled.

If the sales stopped bleeding it would still take until almost the end of 2027 for it to reach 40m, but the Series sales have been declining consistently since the end of 2022. The sales just keep dropping. If it suffers the same YoY drop it had in 2024 for 2025 it will only sell 3.3m units this year.

~50% on its biggest month in its biggest market is honestly mind boggling. I've been saying that the trend is -30% yearly for a while and this seems to be in line with it. If Series finally does 5 million in 2024 it's on course to miss the 40 million mark.

5 * 0.7 = 3.5 million in 2025

3.5 * 0.7 = 2.45 million in 2026

2.45 * 0.7 = 1.71 million in 2027

3.5 + 2.45 + 1.71 = 7.66 million + LTD 32.2 = 39.86 million

And that's not taking into account any additional decline due to the aging platform.

WIth the Europe December numbers it will be past 32M, so almost 8M left to reach 40M. If it declines less from here it can do it, but if the drops are the same or bigger, it won't reach it.

Europe estimates have just been put up. So I thought I'd take a look at how the Xbox performed this holiday compared to the 360 and XBO. Here's every holiday period sales for a current xbox console, ignoring launch years. This was the worst holiday for Xbox hardware in almost 20 years and it's not even close, despite the Series only being 4 years old.

Awful numbers. MS seems to just make series die. Btw, is there no 2013 and 2020 data?

Yes, but I didn't include launch periods for the purpose of comparison as I feel it's more like for like with the Series 2024. On sale for the full period without previous/next generation consoles having an impact.

But if interested Nov+Dec sales:

Xbox 360 (2005) = 1.18m
Xbox 360 (2013) = 2.47m
Xbox One (2013) = 3.07m
Xbox One (2020) = 0.79m
Xbox Series (2020) = 3m

I don't recall many people saying, "xbox will double ps5 numbers", but certainly exspectations were higher during the first 2 years when sales were relatively close so naturally predictions of sales were higher than they turned out. Especially with how big Xbox was becoming as a publisher. Xbox has finished 2nd in sales 2 out of 4 times, and "tied" for 2nd during the 360. It only convincingly came in 3rd this current generation. 

Falling short of 5m in it's 4th full year is a yikes.
If the slide continues, not only is 40m looking doubtful, but one has to wonder if there's a chance the successor ends up getting shelved.
I'm not even sure what they can do at this stage, the kind of drastic course correction it would take to save their hardware business might not be doable.

So December has been added and it was down by a huge 47.6% instead of the average of about 30% in 2024 so it fell a tad short of 32.5m so it's now 7.8m left to go. That awful December has hurt my expectations for it some though I still think it's most likely gonna reach it unless Microsoft just outright gives up on trying to sell it for the rest of its life.

2025 will be very important for it, if Xbox's good lineup and ideally GTA 6 aren't enough to notably slow down the decline and keep it above 4m this year then it's gonna be at real risk of missing it. When Microsoft releases the next Xbox still matters way more than anything else though since only a 2026 release would make below 40m a realistic possibility if it reaches 4m this year.

There's also how much they'll bother trying to sell it going forward since the deals were nowhere near as good compared to the 2023 holiday season so how much they push hardware this holiday season and when GTA 6 releases will matter a lot. And I gotta say it's a real testament to just how badly Xbox did December and last year in general that what seemed like a ridiculous idea back in April no longer seems that out there.

They are already letting key markets run dry on top of bare minimum stock. Welfare put it better on his video about the steep decline: Microsoft is tired of losing ~$200 per unit for virtually no returns.