How important is 4th quarter to home console sales?

[jason1637]

Normchacho said:

RolStoppable said:
Good thread for those who don't know all of the fundamental things about video game sales. Which are actually a lot of people, considering how sales discussion has died down on this site due to VGC falling way behind with updates to their sales numbers.

~50% of the hardware sales happen during Q4 alone. Basically Q4 is as big as the first three quarters combined. This held true for older consoles as well. It's for this reason that publishers try to launch their games during the final quarter of the year.

As others have pointed out, the XB1s share is higher because it's US-centric. Black Friday deals have upped the ante since 2010, so consumers in the USA are well aware that BF is the best time of the year to buy a console.

Hmm...a couple of people have brought this up and I think it's an interesting point. I think I might look into this more tomorrow...

Would be interesting to know the breakdown for regions.