February 2016 NPD Thread! Hardware estimates up!

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Shadow1980 said:

OneKartVita said:

@shadow: I wonder will PSVR have an effect.  I don't see a wii like effect because that was huge but I can see a Kinect like effect if it's successful.  The American economy has improved very nicely since the recession so people are probably more likely to splash the cash on expensive fads. 

Well, peripherals have never given a huge boost to console sales before. The Kinect, arguably the most popular peripheral ever, actually did little to boost the 360's sales. In the U.S. the 360 had already hit its stride after the 360S was released just a few months before the Kinect, and the Kinect didn't seem to offer any substantial boost past launch month. It did very little to affect sales in Europe and Japan as well. VR could be different and actually be a significant system-seller for all we know, but given how peripherals have only ever been modest system-sellers at best and that that VR units will cost a pretty penny it seems unlikely that they will shift a ton of hardware on their own.

I don't know about that. the 360 did not follow a typical generation cycle and if it had only done the 360s without Kinect it's difficult to claim 360 would have had as big of a second wind as it did. Boosting sales, doesn;t necessarily mean an increase. In the back half of a generation the boost is seen more as slowing the decline in YoY sales rather than actually achieving YoY increases. I think Kinect is as responsible for how the 360 performed in its 2nd 5 years as the 360s.