Not read all of your post but I would put a bet with you that they have sold through 18 million easy. They are less than 100k units behind Sony for 2 of the largest markets of UK and USA in 2022. its almost mathematically impossible for Microsoft to not be over 18 million lifetime.
Then where's the PR statement? Why is it so hard for Microsoft to be consistently transparent with at least pronouncing system sale milestones if they are consistently trending ahead of prior consoles? No other platform holder seems to have this transparency or consistency problem, only Microsoft.
Are we even going to get Game Pass sub numbers this month? They gave them last January. I guess we'll have to wait nine more days.
Also, Microsoft is positioning itself in a way that they are not only reliant on sales of their consoles. They have strong presence on PC and subscription service for PC. That's why lower sales for Xbox consoles in comparison to PlayStation will not hurt them as much.
They are positioning themselves in that way by buying large publishers who already generate a huge amount of revenue which therein gets assimilated into the Xbox division's revenue. They are also doing things like increased peripheral presence/sales, and increased revenue from 3P advertisers getting attention and traffic through the Xbox console dashboard. Things like that.
If they had not purchased Zenimax, were not in the process of attempting to acquire ABK, and had reduced 3P ad partner presence through the Xbox OS, that revenue increase would be monumentally harder for them to achieve. And while yes they are increasing it, and plan to increase it further, even aside from console sales, the question can be asked if those methods being used to increase revenue are genuinely healthy for consumers or the larger market.
And, in what way(s) would they be, if so.
Which is not that great for Sony since they actually predicted that they will increase their market share this gen. Which I doubt will happen
Companies can increase their market share in a multitude of ways. We already discussed how Microsoft are primarily going about that. For Sony their plan is increased volume of software sales from 3P games on PS platforms (which already looks to have manifested in some cases, extremely so in a particular few i.e Square-Enix, Capcom etc.), and by having recurrent revenue streams from 1P GaaS/live-service titles.
They also count hardware revenue to this and even if overall console sales for PS5 this gen aren't notably more than PS4, the fact Sony doesn't have a significantly cheaper SKU model contributing to their hardware revenue means that even if they sold a small percent of less PS5s than Microsoft sells Series, they would generate more hardware revenue and that contributes to their market share. Most of the Series consoles being sold are the Series S model, and as we saw over the holidays, they can be dropped to very low prices.
That could help with install base numbers but not with revenue, and Game Pass subs aren't guaranteed to make up for the reduced hardware revenue because for starters, not every Series S owner has Game Pass. Not only that, but if the ARPU remains where it's likely at despite install base unit increases, then you won't see exponential increases in division revenue from any Game Pass contribution at the very least.
That's 90k units for the entire year difference....for Spain
A drop in the ocean.
Japan is one million units.
A large market....
I need to know where another 3 to 4 million units are coming from for the rest of the world.
Italy, France, Argentina, South Africa, South Korea, China, Phillipines, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Canada, Portugal, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Egypt....
...there are a LOT of countries in this world, my dude. They may not account for much individually but combined? Well, we saw how they helped PS3 edge out 360 despite 360's dominance in the US & UK that gen. Microsoft don't have that factor this generation, where at best they'll stay a close 2nd (between them and Sony anyway; Nintendo could either outsell them both or crater depending on how Switch 2 is received). And they are still weak in many global markets outside of the US & UK, to this day.
All the smaller ones start to add up.
.
SenjutsuSage
comment. Looks like he’s saying Xbox wasn’t outsold 2:1 in 2022 as Ampere forecasted…not that he’s questioning if any region had that sales disparity. Everyone knows it’s probably 10:1 in Japan, for example. 
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