No you SAID this multiple times in multiple thread with no data, and also said that the S itself was also underperforming with no data, and that there was a "mission statement" with no quote, and ignored how many times Ampere was debunked based on Microsoft own statements and the sales of the Xbox One comparatively, whole having no credible data to back only 2.2 million Xbox Series consoles sold 2.2 million in over 6 months when Nov and DEC alone would get close to that same number, and now you're trying to pretend you haven't said what you've been saying on repeat in numerous thread everyone has already read.
I have said Series S is underperforming in relation to what people, even Microsoft, were likely expecting it to sell at given its mass-market MSRP at the launch of 2020, its messaging as a cheap Game Pass machine, and the expectation it would help bring in a decent-sized chunk of the casual and mainstream types who normally wait until the mid point of a console gen (when price cuts have taken effect and the library is bigger) to jump in and buy. Those are a big chunk of the people Series S was designed to appeal to. MS are also on record via Hot Chips 2020 saying a reason they made Series S was because they did not expect (for them) to effectively take the traditional price-cut path for Series X over the gen to reach a mass-market price, possibly due to their strategy or projections at the time for install base growth or decline.
So, doing aggressive price cuts and promotions for your already-cheaper system in its 2nd year on the market, in its two strongest markets, even outside of the big holiday seasons, is enough a signal that either MS or retailers (or both) were not seeing the sales for Series S they expected to have at the $299 MSRP. That's called circumstantial evidence. MS did not need to come right out and say the Series S was intended in large part for that type of audience, because its positioning as a weaker-tiered, digital-only, mass-market friendly (in relation to Series X & PS5 MSRP, since Series S was priced same as the Switch at release) signaled that for anyone willing to read between the lines.
You keep saying "Ampere was debunked", but have failed to pull up even
ONE example of a credible source debunking their June report. Why are ducking this? The only person who's slightly debunked them was actually myself, and I only said that their 13.8 million was in reference to sold-in (to retailers) numbers, not sold-through, but at the time I DID think they were sold-through. However, Microsoft's own statements afterwards with tangentially-related information, led me to believe the earlier Ampere numbers were sold-in, not sold-through. You're saying MS's statements & sales for XBO debunked them, but that's what I'VE referenced in stating the Ampere figures were sold-in vs. sold-through! If anything, MS's statements painted Series with
LOWER sold-through numbers than what would've been interpreted in the Ampere June report
!!
I didn't say MS sold 2.2 million from June to end of 2022, did you even read what was written? In fact I have never once stated or insinuated that. I said they've likely sold between 2.3 to 2.7 million from September to December 2022. That's
THREE months, not six. You're the only one trying to make it sound like I said something I in fact did not say. With the sold-through as of end of 2022 I believe Series are at, they would have need to be at 14 million sold-through by June 2022, and I've already said how that was EXTREMELY unlikely.
Not to mention constantly bringing up some anti-xbox stance in unrelated threads, which you also did in the VR thread, randomly bringing up gaming subs then of course gamepass,
StreetsofBeige
had a point about hw radical your dislike for Xbox is. What's more is that again, you've been repeating the same stuff over and over and over the last 6 months we have had various news countering almost all your talking points and you haven't even attempted to change and adapt them.
When that "news" is coming from flakey sources like VGChartz then, no, I'm not going to change my stance. The only thing that can change my stance at this point are sold-through numbers from Microsoft themselves, which they have kind of given to us in charts the past couple of months in their messaging to regulators, and those alongside 3P reputable reports are what I've used to feel confident in arriving at the sold-through numbers I've mentioned ITT.
Again, you just don't like those numbers because of how they look compared to PS5, but as you can see in my response to
R
reksveks
, I'm not blindly cheerleading Sony's numbers either. I just mentioned in a response to them that there's a good chance Sony could come short of their FY PS5 LTD target depending on how many PS5s they actually moved by end of 2022, because Jan - March tend to be slower months for console sales AFAIK.
But you will conveniently ignore that just to fantasize I have a hate-boner for Microsoft. The truth is, I don't have a dislike for the console. I don't have a dislike for the games. But I
DO have a dislike for some of their messaging the past 6 - 8 months, especially the past 4 months in relation to trying to get approval for the ABK deal. And I've had a
BIG problem with how they enable some of the worst in the Xbox community to engage in console war toxicity online, particularly those with big platforms. I hate that they have people in PR who have signal-boosted shady sales sites just to play up optics at the moment, and CEOs boasting about console sales when they said they wouldn't talk about console sales anymore years ago. I dislike that hypocrisy.
I hate how their tactics in trying to get the ABK deal approved have basically been to push half-truths which misrepresent Sony historically, absolve MS themselves of any liability in why their console brand is in the market position it is today, and how they have galvanized (borderline radicalized) some of the most hard-headed among their fanbase to play make-believe lawyers on forums and Twitter. I hate that they let pseudo-"insiders" message BS rumors about the brand and control the narrative rather than actual people in corporate doing so. I hate that for years MS have given half-measures of support to things they promised the fanbase in the past, and yet many in the fanbase don't hold them accountable for it, yet they hold Sony and even Nintendo accountable for
EVERY single small thing they do deviating from something they've claimed they were going to do in the past.
I hate that we have gaming "journalists" who hand Microsoft participation trophies for barely holding things together in managing their console brand the way you'd expect a platform holder (or especially a company that wants to be THE leading platform holder) would, for an
ENTIRE year. I hate that MS want to act as if subscription gaming is the future of the industry (and have brainwashed people into believing this), yet can't even provide quarterly or annual revenue & profit for Game Pass when companies like Meta can provide software revenue for VR games in their own VR storefront. I hate that MS seem to conveniently have several games "journalists" outlets who parrot the
EXACT same corporate talking points that Microsoft themselves want to bring up, at pretty much the exact same time Microsoft brings them up. I hate that a company that
JUST bought an entire publisher in 2021, has done barely anything with them in terms of producing software results, and is having trouble with games from studios they purchased in 2018, wants to buy an
EVEN LARGER PUBLISHER in ABK for a lot of the same reason they
ALREADY purchased Zenimax for!
There're probably a few other things there I forgot to mention, but you wanted to know what I really dislike about Microsoft and the Xbox brand today, so there you go. Those are my genuine feelings on all the things they have done or engage in that I disagree with on some level but as you can see, not a SINGLE one of those things is anything negative about the Xbox Series hardware from a design POV, or actual MS 1P software from a quality POV. Yes, I do think games like Halo Infinite received a lot of fake praise and are general commercial failures, but I also know even they get some things right like the gunplay physics. So you or
StreetsofBeige
or whoever can have whatever issue with me you want when it comes to thinking I hate Xbox.
But at least now you know the reasons why I dislike many of the things they have been doing, and virtually ALL of the problems (for me) stem from PR/messaging and leadership issues. You don't see me out here saying RedFall & Starfield are going to bomb or suck (though I do think some of the Starfield hype is artificial, that's just my opinion on the footage from the June showcase though). You don't see me out here saying Xbox is a "dead brand" and needs to stop making hardware, or that they're greedy & evil. You don't see me making fun of Xbox all the time or using anti-Xbox memes, or anything like that. So save your "anti-Xbox" labels for the right person, because I'm not the one.
I think we're pretty much done with this topic; you don't have any evidence to dispute what sources I've referenced supporting my belief of where Xbox Series sales numbers (sold-through) are at, we were already going in circles because you kept ducking the chance to pull up these other sources and people "debunking" sources I referenced, and now you've basically labeled me an Xbox hater when all I want is for the brand to actually do its damn job as a respectable platform holder in an industry I care about. I'm just not willing to cap for the BS so much of the corporate leadership push out for the sake of optics as some of the rest of you. And I feel good not being a capper for a corporation.
In any case, let's agree to disagree, and move on. I'm tired of this back-and-forth.
stock-checker.com
Eddie-Griffin
That's because I keep trying to give you chances to refute with actual sourced facts, if you're going to claim the sources I cite have been debunked. But time and again, you fail to do so, therefore you are needlessly dragging on conversations in circles because I have to keep specifying my methodology and rationality into the numbers I arrive at, but you forget everything by the time of your very next post.
