Not a single sales milestone given for Xbox Series in that investor's call. They had to re-use a point about Series S they've already mentioned in the past IIRC.
Yeah, fairly confident now Series is currently tracking behind XBO. If we add the guessimated 900K for Xbox's December, that brings it to 17.6 million Xbox Series sold-through as of end of 2022. That's at least 400K behind XBO. At best, they are currently tracking at XBO levels or so little ahead that it could be construed as within the margin of error, but IF they were tracking ahead, we'd of gotten a vague mention of it in the investor's call.
I'm not even saying Series sales right now are bad per se, but it does say a lot that they are tracking behind or (at best) barely even with XBO, considering what that system went through. Then again, if you look back at XBO's offerings up to its 26th month, it actually...wasn't all that bad. They had actual exclusives, for starters, and an arguably stronger start than PS4 with exclusive AAA games. They had TitanFall, Quantum Break, Killer Instinct, Dead Rising 3, Ryse, etc. Series have had almost none of these advantages and are up against a PS5 stronger at this point than PS4 was in its first two years on the market.
I guess in that context, them tracking about even with XBO (or only behind by ~ 400K or so), isn't THAT bad, but it should also be acknowledged they would probably have been tracking worst if Sony didn't have PS5 supply issues in the backend of 2021 and into the early months of 2022. Also even though Series are tracking ~ even with XBO (or slightly behind), it's debatable their hardware revenue is anything close to XBO's, considering the Series S's pricing and the steep discounts it got over the holidays helping contribute to a lot of what sales did come through.
Even though I said Series sales aren't "that" bad, the fact they are losing market share in the US, Xbox's strongest market traditionally, should be at least a bit concerning for Microsoft. We'll see what they can do (in terms of actual games, marketing and the such) to turn things around.
XSX|S is also struggling in the UK and tracking behind Xbox 360 as well as Xbox One. I posted this data in another thread:
Wow. If that's true, then yeah, they would definitely be tracking behind XBO at this point and by more than 400K. I think this is just the result of clashing parts of their strategy working their effect.
All 1P games Day 1 on PC reduces the need for an Xbox console. Series S value proposition isn't boosted enough by Game Pass to deter from fact that you can get a much more capable PS5 for just $100 more or, if you're REALLY about casual games, you probably also want them portable in which case the Switch would be more to your tastes. Virtually no marketing for Series X but, it's a bit hard to advertise "most powerful console" when most of the games don't show it.
Microsoft will have to make some drastic changes for the brand in multiple areas; whether those involve trying to keep Xbox on the traditional console business model or (the better option IMO) shifting it towards a more PC gaming-centric device model a la Valve with Steam Deck & Steam Machines, is going to be interesting to see unfold.