Shadow1980 said:
That's because a launch-aligned cumulative graph like the one I posted will always miss one important detail: it doesn't take into account the fact that many systems are released at different times of the year. This is especially the case in Japan, where consoles launch almost as frequently in Q1 as they do in Q4, and Q3 isn't uncommon, either. This is opposed to the U.S. where most consoles are released in the fall (except for the PS2, every system released in the 21st century was a November launch in the U.S.). This matters because what time of the year a system launches affects its overall sales pattern for the next couple of months. See how the Wii U gets a big early gap against the PS4 in my cumulative chart? The Wii U had the benefit of a holiday season launch. Holiday season launches will have a big first week, followed by a moderate drop as people keep buying the system in decent quantities on up until Christmas & New Years, then sales rapidly drop to baseline after the start of their first full year. But systems that launch outside the holidays will have that big launch week but then drop to baseline very quickly. Let's compare the Wii U and PS4 through their first 13 weeks:
See how the Wii U's second through fifth weeks were much better than the PS4's? That's what launching in the holiday will do to your systems sales in those early weeks. In its first five weeks the Wii U sold over 649k, while in its first five weeks the PS4 sold only 470k, a gap of almost 180k (the gap would grow some more before finally beginning to contract around their respective 31st week, then expanding once we got close to the Wii U's holiday 2013, then finally contracting non-stop once we got to the weeks that would be the start of the PS4's 2015; but those first few weeks were always responsible for the majority of that PS4/Wii U gap). The fact that the Wii U's first several weeks were overall a lot better than the PS4's was something not lost on a lot of people, including on this very forum as well as in the general gaming news media. What was lost on those same people was the fact that one launched in November and the other in February, which had a big effect on those sales in the early weeks. If we align the PS4 and Wii U (and PS3) to their first full Q4, here's what we get:
The PS4 sold about 970k units in Japan in 2014, better than any single year for the Wii U. The PS4's 2014 wasn't a full year, though it launched close enough to the start of the year to where the launch week numbers more than made up for it. In fact, that's not even a fair comparison itself, as the PS4 sold more in launch week than the Wii U did in January and February of 2013 combined. Launch week sales are usually one of the biggest weeks ever for any system in Japan (the PS3 was an exception). It's better to look at their baseline sales. The PS4 had baseline sales in 2014 comparable to the Wii U's from 2013. Combined Q2+Q3 2013 sales for the Wii U were were 230,388 units, while the PS4's Q2+Q3 2014 sales were 232,741 units, which is only about 1% difference between the two. Now, the Wii U did have an unambiguously better Q4 in 2013 than the PS4 did in 2014. However, the PS4's 2015 was superior to not only the Wii U's 2014, but also its 2013 and 2015 as well. The PS4 sold 1.33M units last year, while the Wii U's best year saw it sell only 898k units. The PS4 had a rather dreary 2014, but it improved dramatically in 2015 without even the benefit of a price cut until late in the year. Now that it's 5000 yen lower, it could do even better this year. We're also going to see the latest entry of a series that is perhaps the biggest system-selling game in Japan: Final Fantasy. FFXV alone could push the PS4 to its best week ever by far in Japan. We could also see another price cut this year. In terms of cumulative lifetime sales, the PS4 is going to keep growing in its lead over the Wii U, no matter what kind of reasonable aligning we do. The PS4's real challenge is going to be outpacing the PS3. It's next big challenge will come when it starts reaching the same point in its life that the PS3 was at when the Slim was released. The PS3 Slim pushed the PS3 to new heights, so whether the PS4 can match or exceed the PS3's lifetime sales will depend on if it can get the same growth not only from FFXV, but from future price cuts as well as any new remodels that Sony might come out with. |
You talk about launch numbers, then say ps4 sold 970k in 2014 while ignoring 1 third of that was from launch week. It's not the wii u's problem if ps4 released in february. If interest in the console was actually high, ps4 wouldn't have had such a steep drop on second week 2 and onwards.
Just to be clear, it's obvious ps4 is ahead in aligned sales but the difference isn't huge like the other user was saying.
Now, the ps4 can have a better 2016 than 2015, it could also be flat or sell less, same for wii u. There are a number of factors that will determine it, but do not hope ps4 will sell like the ps3.
