Companies can’t present projected sales data as official sales figures. That’s fraud.

It wasn't a legal/fiscal presentation or report commented and signed by the CEO to the public, meaning shareholders.

But a 'behind doors' presentation of the 'Developer Acceleration Program' to an audience they've had no legal obligations with, nor the motives or elements of the offense of 'fraud' to ever be fulfilled even plain legally.

To me personally, it's really not that far-fetched to imagine their were simply putting up a number of their internally projected shipment data as of June 2023, in order to show developers what they're possibly working with.

trunkswd said:

Under 30 million is not realistic. It was revealed in June 2023 the Xbox Series X|S was 21M+ 

This here alone would mean that, in average since July 2023, X|S have sold-through (!) 490k per month up until December 2025 (which we don't have estimates of just yet).

If I assumed 21M+ shipped equals roughly 19M sold-through by June 2023, and as of November 2025 it's at 33.73m sold-through. That's 14.73M units sold-through in 30 months.

But now just look at November or October 2025 - X|S didn't reach that threshold (according to estimates) even of that average anymore - by a mile.

As they didn't in any month of 2025, and that's already a complete 12 months period totally below average.

To me, this just doesn't feel right. The declines in hardware revenue we're way too high, then not even offset by price hikes, and the question of if you take hardware revenue coming from accessoires into account, if you adjust for that, kind of seems to get avoided being adressed?

I personally believe that here's a bubble of around 4-6M units sold-through that haven't been sold-through.

If X|S had shipped 12M as of April 2022, according to the newest piece of data, which could indicate 10M sold-through by that time, then to me there's absolutely no way X|S went on to sell-through another 23.73M units if last year, 2025, according to estimates, they've barely even reached 2.5M units in 12 months.

I think there's something off. It just doesn't add up.

This goes beyond "overtracked". VGC's team keeps ignoring the signals that point to even harsher sales figures. Panicradio is on the right track here and I've been saying the same for a long time: It makes absolutely no sense that Microsoft is posting apocalyptic numbers and the people cooking data ignore them.

I've said many times now, even directly to VGChartz' team, that I am a supporter of this site and work, and even defend it everywhere I spot slander about it.

And that's why challenging X|S estimates is just that - a response to estimates, and not to be taken personal.

As of November 2025, we have Americas LTD estimates at 20.7M, Europe at 8.7M, leaving 4.3M for the rest of the world.

While I find Americas' estimates to be quite accurate, to me it's impossible X|S is at 8.7M in Europe in five years.

When current estimates have it at only 0.5M total as of November 2025, possibly only 0.7-0.8M in total in 2025. And it could possibly be even worse.

Which leaves ~8M units in four years from 2020-2024.

Although especially in Europe, X|S sales started declining going into 2022 already, going well above the minus 40%, even minus 50%, sometimes even minus 60% yoy declines throughout 2024-2025.

Outside the US, X|S literally tanked in Europe, and most significantly in Asia - where estimates sit at 4.33M lifetime. 4.33M.

The pieces of surrounding data we have:

• May 2022 - 12M

• June 2023 - 21M

• November 2025 - 33.73M

So in very simple, averaged math:

From Nov. 2020 to Jun. 2023 = 21 million* consoles sold in 31 months. In other words, 0.67 million per month. (*If we take that as sold-through).

From Jul. 2023 to Nov. 2025 = 12.73 million consoles sold in 29 months. In other words, 0.44 million per month.

That's a decline of 0.23M units in average in almost the identical time frame - or as if hardware sales had declined only 35% in average from July 2023.

And don't forget: every month an average of 35% is surpassed by 40, 50 or 60%, a different month has to undercut 35% to balance it out = selling more than 0.44M units. When was the last time X|S have sold-through more than 0.44M globally in a single month?

This just can't be true.

I claim here's a bubble of minimium 4M units sold-through that just doesn't exist.

Probably because Microsoft includes revenue coming from accessoires (Headsets, controllers, expansion cards, etc.) in their hardware revenue data, and to me I claim it seems VGChartz estimates aren't taking their share into account.

Outside the US, X|S is literally dead since mid 2022, most definitely going into 2023. Thus I strongly disagree with the estimates indicating a 52:48 split between US and the rest of the world.

https://ir.take2games.com/static-files/98e1567f-07f8-4e07-9444-2cd954cabe57

As things stand Series is under 30 M.

No. Take Two are almost certainly estimating install base (sell-through) here, not shipped units. As that's what actually matters to a publisher.

Which would put the Xbox Series at around 33m.

Really? Where do you take that from?

For many years now, it's been indicated by T2 themselves that they are using "Representing combined PS5 and Xbox Series X/S sales, the data was sourced from one of (or a combination of) research firms IDG Consulting and Newzoo, and the Entertainment Software Association."

All of them report shipment data, not sell-through. And even last February when T2 reported 94M+, we could easily figure out it were shipment numbers.

I truly do not understand how anyone could want an Xbox. Unless you have hordes of disposable income, what's the point?

These firms estimate a multitude of things, MAU's, installbase, consumer spending habits, etc etc. Shipments are reported by Nintendo/Sony. The 138m is not shipments.

As you asked ChatGPT previously in this thread about Xbox sales, you can also ask it about what "138m consoles outstanding" means.

You'll get a response including this: "In finance and games publishing, “outstanding” ≈ “active or existing in the market”, not merely shipped." "When a publisher says “138m video game consoles outstanding”, they are almost always estimating the installed base."