Wii vs PS4 Sales Thread: PS4's lead down to 379,689 units

[Mummelmann]

Groundking said:

Mummelmann said:

I think people are looking to get severely disappointed if they expect the PS4 to maintain the Wii's pace for the first 2-3 years. The first year was about 16.5 million with supply constraints all the way and the second was about 24 million. And then a historically unprecedented decline set in.
The PS4 will likely follow a lot more stable sales curve with a smaller spike (or rather; spikes) but a somewhat similar yearly average total in the end, in a shorter time span though (shorter gen).

The Wii's greatest strength was also its greatest weakness; the target demographic was what enabled it to sell so insanely fast but was also, in the end, what lead to its downfall when these customers simply headed elsewhere, towards more convenient territory with a higher perceived value. It's all deeply fascinating in hindsight and is a grand show of very direct market movements and how different segments affect each other. A lot of people will tell you that "it declined because Nintendo dropped support", which is untrue twofold; they did not abandon it and the decline started long before the decreased publishing focus occurred.

The PS4 does not have a foot in this segment of the market, but it has a strong core following with no hardware gimmick to lose its zest after a couple of years, decent pricing leverage in the coming 3-4 years, terrific support and, currently, a high perceived value. Mind you; I believe that the PS4's flying start is more due to the blunders of the others rather than genius moves by Sony; they have more or less evolved the idea and concept of the PS3 and released it under a lot less hostile circumstances.

In short; the PS4 is selling on its own, permanent premises with no outlying fringe features and gimmicks to drive; it's not trying to aim at the tablet/smartphone crowd and that's a good thing; it has a lot more focus. Imagine it as a flashlight compared to a lantern; the flashlight illuminates a smaller part of the room but the light is a lot brighter. More or less. The Gamepad and Kinect are the two best helpers the PS4 could have hoped for right now, if MS drops Kinect and shifts and directs more focus towards the core market; they will ultimately become a stronger competitor and gain a more earnest and more easily conveyable identity.

In my honest opinion.

So you don't think that ps4 can do either of these things? despite the ps2 having all but done it (IIRC ps2's first year sales were 15 million and second 21million) so i don't think it's beyond the relms of possibility that the fastest ever selling games console can top this with the right games released at the right times (UC4 this year, GT7, GTA6 and GOW4 next year)

The PS4 is not the PS2, simple as that. The PS2 had pathetic competition, both consoles combined sold about half of what the PS3 will end up at, combined, that's atrocious. Factor in that the PS2 had practically monopolized 3rd party support by inheriting the PS1's reputation and momentum and massive software selling capability and that all this was before the gaming market started branching out like it has in the last 5-6 years; and there's no way any console will repeat the feats of the PS2, no 75% marketshare, sustained sales of over 20 million for several years running, no selling hardware for fifteen years, 1.6 billion pieces of software or close to sole subscription to developer support.

Saying that "the fastest selling console can do this/that" is useless; the Wii was also the fastest selling consoles, we saw how that ended.

We're going to see a market contraction and a shorter hardware cycle than the 7th gen; the 6th generation winner, the PS2, saw an unprecedented sales presence for such a long time due to:

A: Having all those advantages listed above (support, marketshare)

B: The beginning stages of the HD era were pretty slow so they SD era PS2 remained relevant for longer, it was also extending into developing markets so it was in Sony's best interest to keep it vital for as long as possible

Point B also ties into why the cycle will be shorter in the 8th gen; first off, the HD transition was always going to draw on, like in the VGA/SVGA age, they basically needed brand new developer paradigms and methods, a whole new race of console developer tools, scaleable middleware, shader tech, new high-res meshes and textures etc, it was extended due to the very nature of development taking a long and costly turn; everyone needed to get the most out of it, not only due to increased cost, but also as a measure of gaining experience, methodology and approach towards HD development in general.
The whole process was not much helped by PC having HD tech for a long time either, for two main reasons; one being that most developers that made their name in the 7th gen didn't have much of a PC tradition, and even if they did and for those who did: console and PC architecture and toolsets were a lot more removed from one another than we see today; there was no proper convergence point in the development process yet, the whole 7th gen was a long transition.

The 8th gen has no such transition; it is more or less a direct continuation of the 7th gen in both philosophy and technical processes.

The other major contributor to the shortened cycle is market driving movements in consumer electronics, mainly due to smartphones and tablets. The consumer electronics sector has become a revisionist arena with an accelerated pace, more process and application integration and more and more shared middle ground in terms of software bedrock (middleware) for development ease, which hinges largely upon a revisionist philosophy and marketing approach. Look at how dedicated handhelds have to essentially sustain momentum through hardware revisions and renewed marketing incentive almost on an annual basis; the same need will hit home console to a greater degree than before due to above mentioned factors, home consoles are simply being affected by overall consumer eletronics market realities a tad slower than dedicated handhelds. Japan is the anomaly here; their market has effectively turned into a killzone for both home consoles and dedicated handhelds now; almost everyone is moving towards tablet/mobile segements (this is also in large part due to a change in development direction, towards a more western-centric philosophy and tradition).
Expect both the PS4 and One to receive more revisions than the 360 and PS3.

TLDR; the PS2 era is long since gone, it won't happen again in home consoles or dedicated handhelds; the PS2 was the culmination in home console, the result of the outmost perfect circumstance, market-wise, economically (right before the financial crisis, the world economy was hitting a peak) and at the peak of an ongoing and highly perfected developer paradigm.

The PS4 is not the new PS2; forget it. The frontloaded launch is simply a testament to the fast market movements I mentioned, sustained, massive momentum with a more static device won't be achieved on the market today, not at the level of the Wii or PS2 at any rate.

PS: How did the Wii sell so quickly, you might wonder? Demographics and genius market aim; they struck the mass market consumers directly in the face and then had this segment and demographic usurped by smartphones and tablets. People who think the PS4 is the new PS2 and those who think the Wii U stands any chance of regaining the bulk of the Wii's audience as equally deluded. The game has changed and will stay changed for the foreseeable future. The console manufacturers will not climb to old heights with traditional means; they will have to change and adapt, and they are doing so, the 9th gen will be radically different to compensate for the new market realities.

Does that answer your question?