I have no doubt that viable piracy improves hardware sales in less fortunate economies, I just don't think it's enough of an effect to have the dramatic impact on global sales that was implied above.
If you want a console whose global sales I think were driven in large part by piracy, look no further than the PSP.
1: https://www.vgchartz.com/charts/platform_totals/Hardware.php...
Buying one from USA.
Sometimes even flying to USA, buying the console and flying back is cheaper than buying local.
And during the PS2 era, everyone I knew that owned a PS2, bought it from a shop that sold modchipped PS2 that they bought from smugglers that got it from USA.
Currently I see that with the Switch, of the people I know that own a game console, most of the time is a Switch, and most of the time is a pre-modded Switch imported from USA, usually an old hardware version with Atmosphere installed, because modchipped Switches are buggy.
edit: Also all of them were modchipped, you could take any console to any random electronics repair shop to get it modded.