You guys are only equating console sales to winning or losing. Software sales is what makes the money .. As long as either company has strong software sales I doubt either could care about who has the largest user base.
Then again this is exactly what I said last gen this time when the ps3 was having a rough time.
Using words in the thread title like 'battle' does make it sound a bit dramatic, but really, that is what it is.
That's how business works. You have to be the best and beat your competition. And best in that sense is the most profit to your shareholders.
If your product is profitable then your objective is to gobble up as much market share as possible. So really, if you're lagging behind like MS are right now, especially so when you compare to the previous generation, then it is quite right to question when they need to react in order to reverse the trend and get some of their market share back.
You say consoles sales doesn't define winning or losing, software sales does - but if you aren't selling consoles, you're not going to be selling software.
For MS to be satisfied with current proceedings they would need to be seeing an increased tie ratio over last gen, or increased revenues per unit on those software sales. I have no idea how those compare to the past. And even then the shareholders would still like to see them increase console sales to then increase software sales on top of that.
To say otherwise is just naive.
Overall Xbox One isn't doing terrible, but they're behind where they should be from the business perspective, from a consumer perspective there is no drama right now.