My thoughts exactly..... had to look at the posters name like 5 times.

Until we get the ones that put HH in the same basket to show Nintendo domination in gaming

Thanks for the people who have gone through the work of making these graphs and tables, it help a lot on seeing the evolution of the numbers.

The only thing Sony have to do with PS5 is to make it BC, and keep releasing new IP and great exclusives. They already learnt a lesson with PS3, and the Next hardware will be very powerful, friendly to develop for and not expensive at Launch. All the rest will follow smoothly.

I really can't understand the reasons behind the "paranoia" of some members here...

Even if they botched the BC for PS5, PS5 won't be another PS3.

PS3 started bad, not only because their own mistakes, but because its main competitor, X360, started realllly strong. By  2004-2006 XB brand was turning the table in USA. The original XB was very well regarded in US by the time X360 launched thanks to Halo and XB Live, so when X360 launched it had a momentum PS3 didn't in US. That affected PS3 a lot of the sales in the US and the fact thar PS3 didn't launch in Europe until 2007 didn't help the impression of the bad launch. And launching at the same time as Wii either...

XBO did not ended as good as the original XB, so there isn't the same hype for the next XB as it was with X360. Playstation during 2006-2007 was just a culminations of missteps from Sony combined with succesful ones from Microsoft and Nintendo. It was the perfect storm. 2020 and 2021 are not pointing in the same direction. XB brand is not something new and fascinating anymore and Nintendo is not launching their new and revolutionary console at the same time.

PS5 will be fine, whatever Sony decides PS5 to be. The real question is..., how much succesful can Sony make PS5 at launch in my opinion. My guess?, they are going to break records at launch, by 6 months, by 12 months, .... like PS4 did but better.

360 did not start that strong, it had a full 12 month lead and sold just over 5 million when PS3 launched.

Compared to the original XB, it did. I was not referring just to absolute numbers strong, but growth, expectation, hype (gears of war in 2006 and every new exclusive game that were announced during E3 at 2005 and 2006 like Bioshock, Mass Effect, Halo 3, GTA IV simultanous release ....) were an indication that X360 was going up hard, and soon and that PS was going to have real competion in USA for the first time. And that was what happened. For PS3 at launch, exclusives were lost and the ones PS3 had were compared to X360 ones, and PS3 had worse ones. Microsoft had Halo and Gears of War and Sony had nothing to compete against that.

Edit: To put a personal example, that Gears of War ad in 2006 almost made me buy an X360 by then. Me, a spanish person, who loved Playstation since PS1 era and knew nothing about XB.

LMFAO. 

Yeah Sony should outline their road map to inflate their share price, meanwhile revealing their plans to Nintendo and MS making them easier to counter.

IMO they just have to release the most powerful console possible at $399 possibly at a $50 loss. Release a pro model possibly for $499 and make the PS5 fully BC. Besides that just keep releasing awesome games. 

Nope

Xbox NPD end of 2002-4.6 million

Xbox shipments end of 2002-8.0 million

360 NPD end of 2006-4.5 million

360 sell through end of 2006-8.0 million

360 was about even in the US and a bit higher everywhere else.

Sure, E3 2005/2006 had some big stuff for 360 but so did E3 2001/2002 for Xbox. Halo, Xbox Live, Knights of the Old Republic, Splinter Cell, Ninja Gaiden, Halo 2 tease, etc.

360 did not start out fast, that is nothing more than revisionist history. It was actually mocked as being Xbox 1.5 initially because it seemed like such a small jump over Xbox.

I repeat. I wasn't talking just about the sales (so i'm not saying X360 sold faster than XB in its first year, i never said that). I was talking about the perception of X360 when PS3 launched. XB brand was in a much better position during 2006 than during PS2/XB era. By 2005 XB Live, Halo 2, X360 launch were something more popular in USA than anything before for Microsoft. In fact, the exponential growth in popularity and sales for XB during 2004 to 2010 was spectacular, and it started around 2006 thanks to X360.

So again, XB brand has never been in a better upward trayectory than in those years (before or after). After a year X360 launched, the sky was the limit back then and I still consider it the golden years for XB (2004-2008).

People wanted new things for the next gen, and there was nothing more popular for the american audience during those years than playing online with XB Live with Halo 2 and then games like Gears of War and Halo 3 were king in USA. Halo 3 hype was way bigger than any hype the original Halo had for the original XB, it wasn't close. That affected a lot PS3 sales in USA in 2007 and for the rest of the gen. X360 had better exclusives and better services than PS3 at a better price during 2006-2007. It's not revisionist history, it's an explanation as to why XB went from selling almost 15M lifetime from 2001-2005 and lag behind way far to PS2 in US to sell almost the same in half the time and becoming the best selling console of the gen in US in the end. It was thanks to that good start. Without it, X360 would never had sold as much as it did (and i know Kinect helped a lot in 2010 afterwards, but without X360 success during 2006-2009, Kinect would had never been a success in the first place).

In the end, X360 convinced people to buy a Microsoft console unlike XB and XBO did against PS2 and PS4, and that's my point.