PS4 is behind in each region, it's just ahead because of the staggered PS2 launch.

They wouldn't be able to manufacture as much PS2 if they launched simultaneously, and if you want to use a counter Japan is much much smaller than before. Not to forget the competition PS4 faces is much harsher. in which year had PS2 sold almost 20M with one competitor selling 10M and the other 13M?

Sony recognizes PS4 as being faster than PS2. The staggered is used more as something to devaluate the achievement.

That's a whole bunch of deflection, PS4 is behind in Japan, America & Europe.

Of course Sony recognizes that, it's good PR.

I've never liked global comparisons for LTD sales (and even lifetime total sales to an extent) because they're misleading and never tell the whole story. Staggered launches have been the norm since forever ago, with the Switch being the first to launch in every region on the same day (though the Wii came fairly close, launching in NA, Europe, and Japan within a less than 3-week span, though smaller markets came months later). And such staggered launches have never been consistent from generation to generation, with the sequence of regions and the time gaps never being the same. Combine this with the fact that each region has distinctly different buying habits, and it's clear that it's impossible to accurately compare global launch-aligned sales in any meaningful way. That's why the only fair comparisons are the ones that focus on each region separately. And when you do that, it's clear that the PS4 is not selling faster than the PS2, at least not in the U.S. and Japan (in Europe it seems to be keeping pace with the PS2).

When you compare USA+Europe launching first with 399 pricetag on PS4 and no library against PS2 launching much cheaper, with big library and accelerated production (PS4 was on it's first 2 years improving production continuously to keep up with demand) the comparison is also distorted.

What can be taken from all this is the PS4 is still another monster console from Sony, but their days of dominating like they did with the PS2 are gone (competition has changed and Japan won't be the juggernaut for PlayStation it once was). 130-140m tops, but still an excellent potential result.

You arent taking inflation into account, PS2 launched in 2000 at $299 which is the equivalent of $405 in 2013 so essentially the same.

No library? PS4 launched with many of the industries biggest franchises, Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, Madden, FIFA, NBA, Battlefield.

You are just creating your own narrative as you go.

Consumer don't take inflation in account on those situations. We still have people complaining that 60 USD per a game is to expensive even if we already had 50-60 USD pricetag as early as SNES games (perhaps earlier). Electronics in general go lower on pricetag even if they should be higher due to inflation, this creates a distorted impression on the pricetags. Hell 600 USD today would be cheaper than most consoles launched up to PS2, still that is a no-go for customers.

At the fifth year on its life PS2 had much more pricecuts than PS4.

This is basically another discussion on the same Switch and PS4 aligned launch that used the excuse that PS4 had a Holiday to launch and that gave it better sales while ignoring that Switch was sold out for basically 6 months so even if launched on Holiday it wouldn't have more inventory to sell. So it isn't pushing a narrative. PS4 aligned outdo PS2 and pricecuts, more games and improved production benefits the staggered launch if you pretend you have to align them separately (or do you think PS4 wouldn't have more consoles to sell if they launched only in Europe or US instead of both?).

And sure we know PS4 have but a near 0 chance of finishing ahead of PS2, but that is more because it will be almost impossible to have the sales PS2 had after PS3 when PS5 launch unless Sony make a very bad launch of PS5. Just look at SW sold and with over 30% of retail games being sold digital and about 50% on all SW being digital you'll see that at end of gen PS4 will have sold SW on a very comparable and far from competitors level.