The market was simply far bigger in the 6th-9th gen than in the days of the Atari 2600 or Megadrive though; in the 2nd gen, the winning console of the generation sold 30m, while in the 4th gen the winner sold 49m, while at the same time that the OG Xbox sold 24m, the PS2 sold over 155m.

OG Xbox was outsold 8:1 by its primary competitor, Xbox One was outsold around 2:1, and the Series is on track to be outsold by like 4:1. Only 360 was actually competitive, and even then it finished in 3rd place behind Wii and PS3.

It's like Xbox has more in common than I thought with Sega. The Master System didn't really do anything special, but the Genesis sold better, then the Saturn flopped, and then the DreamCast flopped harder. -_-

The market was simply far bigger in the 6th-9th gen than in the days of the Atari 2600 or Megadrive though; in the 2nd gen, the winning console of the generation sold 30m, while in the 4th gen the winner sold 49m, while at the same time that the OG Xbox sold 24m, the PS2 sold over 155m.

OG Xbox was outsold 6:1 by its primary competitor, Xbox One was outsold around 2:1, and the Series is on track to be outsold by like 4:1. Only 360 was actually competitive, and even then it finished in 3rd place behind Wii and PS3.

The main purpose of consoles is to sell software and all XBox consoles have been very successful in that regard the original XBox had a higher attachment ratio then the PS2, the 360 had a higher attachment ratio then the PS3 and XBox is better than their competition when it comes to selling games digitally and that started with the 360 already.

The market was simply far bigger in the 6th-9th gen than in the days of the Atari 2600 or Megadrive though; in the 2nd gen, the winning console of the generation sold 30m, while in the 4th gen the winner sold 49m, while at the same time that the OG Xbox sold 24m, the PS2 sold over 155m.

OG Xbox was outsold 6:1 by its primary competitor, Xbox One was outsold around 2:1, and the Series is on track to be outsold by like 4:1. Only 360 was actually competitive, and even then it finished in 3rd place behind Wii and PS3.

Let's not forget MS lost over 1 billion on the original Xbox. It was a dismal failure.  Any other company would have quit but MS goal then was the same as when they revealed the Xbox One. They wanted to be the one stop place for the living room for entertainment. It wasn't about video games itself. They wanted to monopolize the living room the same way they did the home study (when people still had a computer room). Paul Allen a founder of MS who then owned a cable network called TechTV, found ways to push Xbox and the entertainment box push. Jeff Gerstman told a funny story. MS shown some games and the Xbox at Gamespot and they were all a little, we'll see if this will be good but not sure yet. MS was miffed at the response and complained to the managment using words like "We showed them the future of interactive entertainment"

MS never really had a clue. They lucked out with Halo early but had a controller almost no one liked. Oh yeah it was rushed so an entire run had bad capacitors and bad PSU's so they sent out free replacement power cords to every Xbox owner who mailed in a request. Brute Force they pushed as the next Halo, do you remember it? No one does. They pushed a lot and nothing took off. Forza took until 360 era and only after PG died. Then the race to beat Sony to market they rushed a console with missing features and so poorly designed it failed from overheating. They went for aesthetic over function. Losing another couple billion on that alone let alone selling the hardware at a loss. However at least 360 had a bunch of cool exclusives. Content wise MS got it right early years. My fave console that gen. 

If you watch the Xbox 360 reveal and E3 in 2005 you will note they again are pushing this TV/Movie narrative with 360. They even talked about a Tivo like service on 360 in 2005. 

If the purpose of consoles is to sell software, than the PS2 sold more software than the OG Xbox, the PS4 sold more software than the Xbone, and the PS5 is selling more software than the Xbox Series. The total amount of software sold trumps the attach rate.