Second year of a console was never the best in sale, so I expect better sales in 2015 and 2016 at least.
And where did I imply that it is? I’m simply stating that the PS4 would need enormous yoy growth in both the second and third year and then sustain this level for several years to have any shot at the PS2’s lifetime sales. 2015 will be up yoy on 2014 for sure, there’s no reason to think otherwise and I’m not arguing against that; my issue is with the expected numbers themselves, I don’t think you realize just how much is needed on average every year to reach 155 million consoles sold and there’s no way the PS4 will keep selling for 13-14 years like the PS2, so it has to have higher average yearly numbers than the PS2.
4th quarters expected to do between 100 and 150% of the three other quarters.
Erm, no, not even close. 4th quarter usually makes up anywhere from 50-60% of a console’s sales for the year. If a console sells 6 million in Q1, Q2 and Q3 combined, 12-15 million sold and 18-21 million for the year is not normal, I don’t even know if an increase like that has ever happened. I’m actually 100-150% certain is hasn’t.
Some numbers:
360 2008 total: 10.8 million, 5.8 million Q4.
360 2009 total: 10.1 million, 5 million for Q4.
360 2010 total: 13.2 million, 6.8 million for Q4.
PS3 2008 total: 10.2 million, 4 million for Q4.
PS3 2009 total: 13 million, 6.9 million for Q4.
PS3 2010 total: 14 million, 6.3 million for Q4.
Wii 2008 total: 24 million, 13.7 million for Q4.
Wii 2009 total: 21 million, 11.7 million for Q4.
Wii 2010 total: 17.5 million, 8.7 million for Q4.
Does that look like a 100-150% increases to you? You’re way into deep space with this. Or did you mean 100-150% increase over the average for each individual quarter? If so, then that is also wrong since Q1 usually sells a lot more. I just don’t understand what you’re trying to accomplish here.
200k * 26 = 5.2 millions
7.2 * 1.25 = 9 millions (exceptionnal weeks counted in)
7.2 + 9 = 14.2 millions second year.
I’m confused, are you calling 2014 PS4’s second year? 2015 is the PS4’s second calendar year; it only sold for 6-7 weeks in 2013. Not to mention that this whole bit doesn’t match your own formula above, stating 100-150% increases. 100-150% increases of 5.2 million (in your example) is 10.4 and 13 million, not 9 million.
Besides; as I have shown above, your math is highly flawed regardless, the Q4 chunk of the CY sales simply isn’t that big, 55% is probably pretty close to a rule of thumb. In which case your example would yield about 10.6-10.8 million.
Oh, and why do you count only 26 weeks for three quarters? Unless you’ve never seen a calendar before, I’m guessing you know that there are about 39 weeks in three quarters, that’s why it’s called a quarter, as in one quarter of a year.
And all these while being sold out on a regular basis, we don't know what would the numbers be if it wasn't.
This sentence leads me to believe that you’re treating 2013 as “first year”, this is useless since it sold only for 6-7 weeks in 2013, for numbers with any meaningful comparison, and you have to have a full year of sales. Not entirely unlike the crowd that went bananas when the Wii U had a 1000%++ increase in October, amazing percentage but low and meaningless baseline comparison number (and the number post-increase wasn’t even impressive at that).
No, we don’t know the exact demand but you seem to assume that it is far beyond the supply; this isn’t necessarily the case at all so it’s a pretty pointless argument.
360 got a 137.5% better sales third year compared to second year. Wii did 150%. That would mean 20 millions on third year.
Did they now? Where the hell did you get that crazy idea? Are you telling me that the 360 sold 16.1 million in 2007 (with base number being about 6.8 million for 2006 and your backwards employment of launch month(s) being a full year)? Or are you suggesting it sold 18.7 million in 2008 (based off of actual second year numbers of about 7.9 million in 2007)?
Heck, if you use your definition (I think) of “first year”, the 360 was up almost 500% in its second year!!! Amazing!
And the Wii, it did about 16.6 million in its first year, can you find your alleged 41.5 million sales numbers for the second (your third… ?) year?
Or the actual third year, based on the 24 million it actually sold on the second year (not 41.5 million), it sold 60 million that year? Not even John Lucas or Avinash would suggest such a thing.
And where does that 20 million come in? If your example shows the PS4 selling 14.2 million, and then increasing 137-150% the year after, that goes pretty far beyond 20 million, that makes 35.5 the upper end up the scale (at 150% up yoy). Incredible stuff. The best part is that it actually needs those kinds of numbers at peak level to beat the PS2, with this gen being shorter for sure.
Never a playstation homeconsole had stopped abruptly to sell because first party support goes till the end.
Have you noticed that the PS3 is down 65-70% yoy? That sort of suggests that you’re being proven wrong in this statement on the very charts you have available on this very site.
Saying that the market has changed is cute, but still the homeconsole market has grown on 7th gen from the 6th one. Like every previous did.
And it will keep growing, right? With the Wii U set to max out at 20-25 million and One starting to look like it could struggle to beat the 360, especially with a shorter life cycle, that only leaves about 190-200 million or so for the PS4 to fill in to prevent a contraction. Now that’s cute.
Also; have you noticed that the handheld market is set to sell about 100 million compared to the 7th generation’s roughly 240 million?
The majority of the consumers who attributed to the actual growth in console sales in the 7th gen are now gone; these are the ones who spend their money and time on tablets and phones, browser games and social games. The 7th gen saw three consoles in the 85-100 million region; that’s incredible and it won’t happen again, meaning that the market leader needs simply unfathomable sales to plug the hole.
The market has changed, the PS3 and 360 and Wii launched in an entirely different era of gaming, even a blind man can see it. Trends are not set in stone; otherwise the Wii U would be winning now (the “two in a row theory”), the Wii would have outsold the PS2 and even the Dreamcast would have pulled respectable lifetime sales.
This illusion of infinite growth is ridiculous; have you seen the state of the global economy? That’s the reality right there, markets are largely the same, especially for high end goods and luxuries. Nothing grows forever, and this is where the wagon stops for the consoles; gaming has branched out and splintered into several segments, leaving smaller chunks for consoles.
There are many reason to this, but one of the reason ps3 stayed strong till the end despite nowadays electronics having 2 years lifespan is that it improved on a daily basis, from PSN to psMove, the PS3 experience now is nowhere near the one from 2006.
The PS3 kept its own for sure, but it’s also plummeting yoy compared to the PS2 and pretty much every other console in history, this is in itself a clear sign of the market movements at work. Move was a factor in the longevity? Same as Kinect? Hmm, both 360 and PS3 are crashing and the Kinect even sold a lot more than Move. PSN? 360 has Live, a much more popular service, yet it didn’t prevent the 360 from crashing and even being caught by the PS3 in the twilight of the 7th gen.
The 7th gen was a transitional period in game development; the HD era was ushered in and it was always going to draw on longer than the 6th, rising costs, extended development times due to lack of tools, middleware and hands-on experience and the need to set a base structure, make tools and gain some pedigree in a new development paradigm. In addition; the PS3 and 360 had some decent multimedia functionality as well, lending them extended value, and streaming services became quite popular on both from 2010 and up. Having a market leader pull a complete collapse also left things abnormal in the market compared to previous generations; the entire 7th gen was an anomaly, in hindsight.
The PS3 was a child of the times before the tablet/smartphone revolution and was not as severely affected as the newest consoles, especially since actual gaming on these devices didn’t really become a huge factor until past the midway point in the life cycle of the 7th gen consoles.
Consumer electronics has become more revisionist and fast-paced than ever, and will stay that way.
Sure, we’ve always adhered to Moore’s Law but there’s even more to it now; where Moore’s Law represented the outmost in computer technology and not necessarily the movement in mainstream devices; today we see the trendsetters following this process to the letter. The fads come running full speed and disappear as quickly as they entered, even the weighting system on tablet/mobile software depicts this very directly; things come and go at enormous speed, makes a ton of money in 6-12 months and then all but vanishes from the scene.
The One, Wii U and PS4 are also competing a lot closer on non-gaming features; they’re aiming for a large degree of social integration, networking, more online options and gimmicks for drawing in more shallow consumers (Kinect and Gamepad), which makes them all the more prone to these market movements; they have willfully become devices closer to tablet and smartphones (and we’re seeing the ultimate consequence of this with the Wii U and its ill-conceived tablet controller).
The very same market movements and lack of a need to standardize and get acquainted with new development subsets and methods will ensure a shorter generation for sure.
Where revisionist philosophy concentrated on hardcore tech fanatics’ kit a few years back; it has now invaded the mass market devices and the mass market ultimately sets the pace for all the rest (advanced tech used to slowly invade the mass market and appear almost one full chipset generation later, but now it’s instantaneous across the board), this is further affected by the fact that these devices are multi-purpose more than any others, each individual aspect and feature requires updates and revision; it is the very core of the design philosophy of modern smart devices. Consoles exist on the fringe of the mass market, sometimes dipping into it, more often than not staying on the edge. Dedicated handhelds are closer to these movements due to their mobile nature and convenience factor, and we’re seeing them being hit a lot harder, it is however inevitable that home consoles will also be affected.
Consoles are static products by nature and thrive mostly on content before lasting hardware appeal through revision, we’ve seen for many years already how handhelds have had to revise themselves very often in order to maintain momentum and the same is happening to home consoles; look at the sales boost a fairly simple hardware revision provides; this is a testament to the revisionist philosophy invading console design and markets more and more.
Same movement, only a bit slower. It’s happening, don’t fool yourself.
