Shadow1980 said:
If you look at most past systems, you see that their debut quarter and the first quarter of the following year compare very favorably to each other, so 8+ million is a distinct possibility for the PS4. Here's VGC's estimates for total global sales for all three seventh-gen systems during their launch quarters:
Wii: 2954k
PS3: 1252k
360: 1178k
Here's how they did the following quarters:
Wii: 2883k
PS3: 1606k (incl. Europe debut)
360: 1246k
Here's how NPD shows for sales just in the U.S. for the three and and the PS2 in their launch quarters:
PS2: 1087k
Wii: 1080k
PS3: 688k
360: 607k
And in the following quarter:
PS2: 1007k
Wii: 1030k
PS3: 501k
360: 603k
As we see, these systems' first two quarters were very close to each other. However, this doesn't always happen. The counterexamples are the Xbox, GameCube, and Wii U, which had pretty big launches but they dropped pretty sharply in the following quarter, at least in the U.S. According to the NPD, the Xbox dropped 71.6% from launch quarter to Q1 of 2002, while the GC dropped 79.7%. The Wii U dropped 78.5% from launch quarter to Q1 2013. However, they were clear underdogs in their respective races. In the sixth generation demand for the PS2 eclipsed that for the Xbox and GC, and demand for the Wii U obviously hasn't been too great. However, there is clearly strong demand for the PS4 and XBO, and they have all the ingredients to make for successful systems, which makes me think they'll behave more similar to the PS2, Wii, 360, and PS3 in the short term. Of course, besides demand there are other factors to consider, including supply as well as whether their launch holiday sales were inflated due to a growing "preorder culture" combined with the longest wait between generations ever, which caused a lot of people to line up on Day One. Still, I think that globally the PS4 will likely breach 3 million and the XBO should breach 2 million, thus bringing their LTD totals to around 7 million and 5 million respectively. Of course, nothing is guaranteed.
|
