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Forums - Sales Discussion - PS4/XBO/NS - 2019 vs 2020; WEEK FIFTY-THREE!! GAME! SET! MATCH!

I think a console lifespan of eight years (so 4 years each in first and second half) would be more accurate. Consoles that are relevant to the market for ten years are exceptions rather than typical. That said, great data and I loved reading the analysis on it. Thanks!



psychicscubadiver said:

I think a console lifespan of eight years (so 4 years each in first and second half) would be more accurate. Consoles that are relevant to the market for ten years are exceptions rather than typical. That said, great data and I loved reading the analysis on it. Thanks!

Hi @psychicscubadiver

I agree that 10 years is a lot for most consoles, especially if you consider good selling years, my idea is not try and split sales in two halves, but rather to have the strong first years compared to the end, what you could consider having good legs. 

Most consoles peak between year 4 and 5, so I understand why you would want to compare the first 4 years. I did the change and it seems like it is very interesting, specially because you see how X360 and PS3 sold more after year 4. 

Good idea, it might be better to view it this way. There is no real correct way to analyze it, so seeing things from different perspectives is always fun.



dmillos said:
The_Liquid_Laser said:

I see you are doing a lot of analysis of the data, especially what percentage of sales come during a system's 2nd 60 months.  I would ask that you look at the year each of these systems had their sales peak.  I think you will find a strong correlation here.  The systems that peak later tend to have a greater % of sales in the second 60 months.

I am saying this because Switch is obviously peaking later than most Nintendo systems.  If Switch is peaking this year, then we can still expect a large % of sales to be in the second 60 months.

Hi @The_Liquid_Laser Thank you for your idea, it is definitely fun to look at all these different angles, here is the same chart but with the peak years:

A few things to highlight are:

1) GBA had its peak year on year 4 but it still sold much less in the second half. I checked that out and it coincides with the release of the DS on its year 5. 

2)PS4 should be able to climb up this list , even with a slight chance to catch up to X360 and maybe even DS.

3)XONE probably won't reach the 3DS, and the 3DS peaked on its first 12 months.  

4)I still want to know how did the N64 peak so early! I would love it if anyone has sales data for Playstation and Sega consoles. 

5) With regards to the switch, if this is its peak year, and it has similar second half than year 4 consoles, then it should sell about 30 million plus what it sells in 2021, so the end total should be near 130 million.

Here is where I think that it is important to not look at data to predict but rather to question. This was an unprecedented year, the switch is in new territory with it being the only console nintendo is focusing on. It is probable that this ends up being the NS peak year, it increased over 40% from last year. But this doesn't really mean it is going to behave like other consoles did. 

Personally I think the NS should easily be second place on this table.

6) Another extremely important factor that really is not seen here... But maybe I should look into adding it. Is when a new console got released, There are two reasons a console has poor second half. The first is that it simply peaks early like the WiiU, but the second is that a new Console is released like the GBA or even the DS.

This is an interesting table.  One thing it clearly shows is that systems that peak later tend to have more sales after 60 months.  It also shows that even after 60 months, Switch is still going to have something like 25-36% of it's lifetime sales if it behaves like past systems. 

There are some people who think Switch sales are going to magically plummet soon, but historically that doesn't happen unless a new system gets released early.  For the past few years Nintendo executives have been talking about lengthening the Switch's lifetime.  It is not likely to get cut short by a new system.  It is actually more likely that the opposite will happen.



The_Liquid_Laser said:
dmillos said:

Hi @The_Liquid_Laser Thank you for your idea, it is definitely fun to look at all these different angles, here is the same chart but with the peak years:

A few things to highlight are:

1) GBA had its peak year on year 4 but it still sold much less in the second half. I checked that out and it coincides with the release of the DS on its year 5. 

2)PS4 should be able to climb up this list , even with a slight chance to catch up to X360 and maybe even DS.

3)XONE probably won't reach the 3DS, and the 3DS peaked on its first 12 months.  

4)I still want to know how did the N64 peak so early! I would love it if anyone has sales data for Playstation and Sega consoles. 

5) With regards to the switch, if this is its peak year, and it has similar second half than year 4 consoles, then it should sell about 30 million plus what it sells in 2021, so the end total should be near 130 million.

Here is where I think that it is important to not look at data to predict but rather to question. This was an unprecedented year, the switch is in new territory with it being the only console nintendo is focusing on. It is probable that this ends up being the NS peak year, it increased over 40% from last year. But this doesn't really mean it is going to behave like other consoles did. 

Personally I think the NS should easily be second place on this table.

6) Another extremely important factor that really is not seen here... But maybe I should look into adding it. Is when a new console got released, There are two reasons a console has poor second half. The first is that it simply peaks early like the WiiU, but the second is that a new Console is released like the GBA or even the DS.

This is an interesting table.  One thing it clearly shows is that systems that peak later tend to have more sales after 60 months.  It also shows that even after 60 months, Switch is still going to have something like 25-36% of it's lifetime sales if it behaves like past systems. 

There are some people who think Switch sales are going to magically plummet soon, but historically that doesn't happen unless a new system gets released early.  For the past few years Nintendo executives have been talking about lengthening the Switch's lifetime.  It is not likely to get cut short by a new system.  It is actually more likely that the opposite will happen.

Yeah the "Switch cliff" has always been more wishful thinking than realistic prediction. I mean, it's not impossible that Nintendo will lose their marbles and release a premature successor, they've certainly made similarly stupid moves in the past, but it's highly unlikely based on the facts at hand.



curl-6 said:
The_Liquid_Laser said:

This is an interesting table.  One thing it clearly shows is that systems that peak later tend to have more sales after 60 months.  It also shows that even after 60 months, Switch is still going to have something like 25-36% of it's lifetime sales if it behaves like past systems. 

There are some people who think Switch sales are going to magically plummet soon, but historically that doesn't happen unless a new system gets released early.  For the past few years Nintendo executives have been talking about lengthening the Switch's lifetime.  It is not likely to get cut short by a new system.  It is actually more likely that the opposite will happen.

Yeah the "Switch cliff" has always been more wishful thinking than realistic prediction. I mean, it's not impossible that Nintendo will lose their marbles and release a premature successor, they've certainly made similarly stupid moves in the past, but it's highly unlikely based on the facts at hand.

I agree with both of you, even if this is the Peak year for the Switch, it is looking at at least 50M more in sales. But personally, unless Nintendo has another revolutionary technology like the Wii that they must release, they will probably take their time and the switch is in prime position now to reach 150M lifetime.

This to me sounds like a conservative scenario:

YearTotal Sales
202075,000,000
2021100,000,000
2022117,000,000
2023131,000,000
2024143,000,000
2025150,000,000



dmillos said:
yo33331 said:

You forget about the PS2.

The PS2 had the best second even third life

PS2 after it's first 60 months (after march of 2005) sold around 60-70M units way higher than DS or any other system.

And also which other system will sell almost as much its successors in the successors lifetime ? a.k.a. 360 and PS3 in 2005-2013 ? No one.

Hi @yo33331 Thank you for this information, I would love to see more data from Playstation and Sega, Do you happen to have these sales numbers? I would gladly add them to this list.

If you look at the graph, the Gameboy sold almost 90 million units in it's second life, so it seems like it could potentially be higher than the PS2. But like I mentioned before this is a bit fussy due to the fact that the Gameboy Color is being merged with the Gameboy. 

Also the Wii seems like it was very similar in regards of selling more than its successor during the second life (but that is like cheating because the WiiU sold horrible amounts).

And witht the gameboy asterisk, it sold way way more than the GBA did, According to this chart it sold nearly 90 million in its second life while the GBA sold 22 million in total.

Anyways, thanks for pointing this out, I am sad that there is not that much data on older consoles as it would make it a lot of fun to compare them.

This is best i've found for PS1  & PS2:

Wiki has PS2 broken down by region, though not sure how as afaik the info is taken from Sony's press releases which don't usually specify.


Historical press releases about PS from Sony: (just noticed a typo they have on there saying "software/setvices" XD )

https://www.sie.com/en/corporate/release/archives.html

Also think you are ok for Nintendo data, but here is some useful historical spreadsheets from Nintendo's corporate website:

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/historical_data/index.html



Mar1217 said:

 I mean it is similar as to why Nintendo were still satisfied with the GameCube sales at the end of the day.

I find it hard to believe Nintendo was satisfied with Gamecube's performance given the userbase decline and pitiful marketshare it represented, and their decision to go in a totally different direction with their next system.



HigHurtenflurst said:

This is best i've found for PS1  & PS2:

Wiki has PS2 broken down by region, though not sure how as afaik the info is taken from Sony's press releases which don't usually specify.


Historical press releases about PS from Sony: (just noticed a typo they have on there saying "software/setvices" XD )

https://www.sie.com/en/corporate/release/archives.html

Also think you are ok for Nintendo data, but here is some useful historical spreadsheets from Nintendo's corporate website:

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/historical_data/index.html

Hi @HigHurtenflurst Thank you very much for these links! I have been checking them out and ther is a ton of data to look at. I saw one of the early press releases and it mentioned regions, someone must have dived real deep into all this data to produce this chart. 

https://www.sie.com/content/dam/corporate/en/corporate/release/pdf/020919e.pdf

 

This 40 million in 2.5 years was a record at the time, I saw that the DS managed to beat it by a little bit and the Wii actually had almost 48M. Switch was a bit short at 36 (but one less holiday).

Thank you very much for this information, I wish I could give more than one thumbs up.

Now to find Sega! and why not, lets search for Atari as well. :)



Mar1217 said:

IF we take Nintendo's management in consideration, the N64 probably was still a good income to them despite the cost of developpement rising due to the 3D tech and the use of cartridges at the time.

Relatively at the time, consoles didn't need to sell to the upwards it does today. I mean it is similar as to why Nintendo were still satisfied with the GameCube sales at the end of the day.

I would assume that these consoles are somewhat profitable even with such low sales. Thanks to the link that @HigHurtenflurst shared, the GC and N64 still managed to sell a lot of software. 

 

My question is how is it possible that such a machine that gave me such great games and countless hours of fun, could have sold so little, less than both of its predecessors.



dmillos said:

Hi @HigHurtenflurst Thank you very much for these links! I have been checking them out and ther is a ton of data to look at. I saw one of the early press releases and it mentioned regions, someone must have dived real deep into all this data to produce this chart. 

https://www.sie.com/content/dam/corporate/en/corporate/release/pdf/020919e.pdf

 

This 40 million in 2.5 years was a record at the time, I saw that the DS managed to beat it by a little bit and the Wii actually had almost 48M. Switch was a bit short at 36 (but one less holiday).

Thank you very much for this information, I wish I could give more than one thumbs up.

Now to find Sega! and why not, lets search for Atari as well. :)

Sony used to report regional breakdowns so the early figures on wiki will be from those... they did it in quarterly reports back in 2002 (on the wiki page for PS2 you can see it has new rows every 3 months... then after that it gets updated either when Sony made press releases or once per fiscal year.

Early in PS3 life they stopped reporting shipment numbers at all (for fiscal reports it's not a legal requirement as it's about revenue & profits, not unit sales) apart from the occasional press release with global milestone totals.

Actually just found some better shipment data for Sony, it has FY2008 to 2011 broken down by quarter: Here
If you open the FY2001-2011 consolidated data spreadsheet, then go to the P50 & P51 sheets that's the best shipment data I have seen from Sony in that period.