But 18.5 mil. XS is sold through ( since Ampere is mentioning install-base), so, your estimated shipment were 4 million more than sold through number. So, 4 million sitting in warehouses and stores. That's highly overestimated. 21 mil. is max. IMO.
So I'm going to say that's actually not at all unreasonable. In order to explain this, we will have to talk about Xbox One sales and shipments.
We already know Xbox One shipments were 5.1M as of March 2014. We know Xbox shipped 10.1M Xbox 360's and XB1 for the next 9 months.
Apr-Jun 2014: 1.1M
Jul-Sep 2014: 2.4M
Oct-Dec 2014: 6.6M
I've already gone over in this
post how we can use hardware revenue for the quarter to find out generally where each Xbox is for units shipped. I've gone back recently and readjusted some of the calcs but in generally it's impossible for XB1 to be much more or much less than what I am going to provide. We know exactly how many total Xbox's were shipped, we know the hardware revenue checks out for only console sales, and we have a great idea on what each Xbox was selling for at the time.
As of now, I have XB1 making up 7.1M of that 10.1M.
Q2 2014: 0.4M
Q3 2014: 1.7M
Q4 2014: 5.0M
Again, we could argue that these aren't exactly correct, maybe off by 100K, but in general, you would need a compelling reason for why XB1 would be far below these numbers for any given quarter when we know what the total Xbox shipments are.
This would put XB1 shipments at 12.2M, but for arguments sake, lets throw that down to 12M. Sell through LTD for 2014 is any between 9.5M and 10.5M given what
Ubisoft and
Take Two said at the time. This would mean XB1 had anywhere between 1.5M and 2.5M unsold units at the end of 2014. PS4 had 1.7M for comparison.
The reason all of that is important is because we can very easily find XB1 2015 shipment LTD. Microsoft reported the following total Xbox shipments.
Jan-Mar 2015: 1.6M
Apr-Jun 2015: 1.4M
Specifically for Q1 2015, there is this quote
Xbox Platform revenue decreased $306 million or 24%, driven by a 20% decline in console volume and lower prices of Xbox One consoles compared to the prior year.
Microsoft specifies consoles volume is down, and Xbox One console price is down. This can mean two things
1. Both Xbox 360 and XB1 units are down YOY, Xbox 360 ASP was flat
2. Xbox 360 units are down YOY while price was flat, XB1 units are flat but price was down
The above two would only really be arguing over at most 200K shipments, either XB1 was 1.2M again (same as Q1 2014), or slightly down.
Unfortunately, Q2 doesn't have anything specific due to Microsoft only comparing full FY results. I think XB1 shipping about the same as Q1 makes sense, the only real decline would be from 360.
This would then mean XB1 shipped anywhere between 2M and 2.4M in the first half of 2015. LTD would then be 14M to 14.4M. Again, at this point we would only be arguing over a few 100K.
This is important now. The next two quarters of XB1 are going to be at least equal to what it shipped in 2014.
Q3 2015: Xbox hardware revenue decreased 17%, mainly due to lower volumes of Xbox 360 consoles sold.
Q4 2015: Xbox hardware revenue decreased 9%, mainly due to a decline in Xbox 360 console volume. Xbox One revenue decreased slightly, due to higher console volume, offset by lower prices of consoles sold.
At a low ball for Q3 2015, XB1 shipments are equal to 2014. Q4 2015 is unquestionably higher than Q4 2014.
Bare minimum, XB1 is at 20.7M, assuming the second half of 2015 was only equal to 2014, and using the low end estimates for the rest of 2015. Realistaclly, XB1 shipments are over 21M at the end of 2015.
XB1 sell through
has been estimated to be ~19M at that same time. We are looking at well over 2M unsold units for XB1 at the end of 2015, and I estimate that it's closer to 2.7M.
This is what I have for XB1 shipments:
Q2 2015 LTD: 14.6M
Q3 2015: 1.7M
Q4 2015: 5.2M
2015 LTD: 21.7M
The reason I believe this is nearly accurate is due to what Microsoft says regarding FY shipments. FY 2016 (July 2015 to June 2016) unit volume was stated to be higher than FY 2015.
The reason this is important is because FY2015 (July 2014 to June 2015) is pretty much locked in at ~9M (all of the above explains this), meaning FY2016 is over 9M. The first two quarters of 2016 are not going to be up over 2015 due to revenue declines and nothing from Microsoft PR saying XB1 console volume improved, so at best Q1+Q2 2016 should be ~2M.
XB1 was at 5.1M as of March 2014
The math practically screams XB1 shipped 9M in FY 2015
FY 2016 is higher than FY2015 (9M), but we can subtract about 2M from the second of the FY (First half of 2016 calendar year) to get ~7M
5.1 + ~9 + ~7 = ~21.1M, but we're also missing Q2 2014, so anywhere between 400K to 600K.
All of this to get the point I've been trying to make. Microsoft has a history of over shipping in the holiday quarter. XB1 most likely had nearly 3M unsold units at the end of 2015, and that was a console that had very good sell through.
Now look at XBS. Up to September 2022, XBS had been outpacing XB1 LTD. Q4 2022, XBS sell through massively disappoints compared to XB1 Q4 2015.
I do not believe it's at all unreasonable to suggest that XBS and XB1 would have similar shipment performance in the Q4 2015 and Q4 2022 comparable, but XBS had worse sell through.
You can argue that maybe XB1 didn't have exactly 2.7M unsold units, it's 2.4M, or something, but as I've outlined above, the math and statements and known figures do not leave much wiggle room for XB1 shipment LTD up to June 2015, and thus December 2015. The point is that for a console that had similar shipment performance, sell through being worse would point to a +3M discrepancy in the sold through and shipment gap.
My XBS shipment estimate is at 22.2M. This Ampere sell through estimate would mean a gap of 3.7M
My XB1 shipment estimate is at 21.7M for 2015. Sell through estimates for 2015 would mean a gap of ~2.7M.
An additional million or so units unsold compared to XB1 in the same point of time when XBS had worse sell through than XB1 is what I'm suggesting.
Important edit: I forgot to readjust Q4 2022 estimates for XBS, I had it over my readjusted Q4 2021 estimate, when Q4 2022 is down YOY. I have Q4 2022 at 4.1M, thus a LTD of 22.2M
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