| Shadow1980 said: Those global home console figures are neglecting quite a few caveats. The PS2 had the strongest legs by far of any console, the Wii was obviously an anomaly, the seventh generation was the most protracted ever, and Japan is making global sales look worse than they are (also, there the rate of multi-platform households, which is impossible to quantify for much of gaming history but still apparently quite high last generation). Let's isolate the region we have the most complete data set for: the U.S. Instead of stacking them to get total hardware sales of all systems on the market in a given year, I've split the generations apart (note that I've included my own personal projections for 2015; also, PS2 data after 2009 is unavailable, and PS3 & Wii data from 2012 & 2013 is based on VGC data since NPD data is unavailable): |
So... the Wii was an anomaly because it sold so much and to new groups, the PS2 was an anomaly because it was on the market for so long and the 7th gen was an anomaly because it lasted for so many years. It sounds more like bad excuses for why we are experiencing a huge nosedive in terms of console sales rather than an analysis of what is actually causing the market to fall, while gaming as a whole continues to grow. Wouldn´t the PS1 also be an anomaly because the console sold over 100 million copies in Sony´s first try at the console market?
