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Barkley on 21 March 2018
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RolStoppable said:
Barkley said:

The inclusion of handheld consoles isn't an issue for the purposes of using the data in relation to the Switch, the inclusion of 9 Nintendo systems in comparison to 5 PlayStation systems certainly does skew the data however. The Switch is a single system.

Average EU Sales per Sony System: 31.1m
Average EU Sales per Nintendo System: 21.2m (not including Switch)

Now only taking the 5 BEST systems from Nintendo (DS, 3DS, Wii, GBA, GB/GBC) we get an average of 30.2m, still lower, and with advantages in Nintendo's favour such as the PS4 still having a lot of sales to come, and Nintendo's mistakes and failures being wiped away, unlike the remaining Vita.

I don't see the point in spinning the data to arrive at more favorable results for one company over the other when none of that spinning will result in a noteworthy change to Switch's prospects.

I mean, I could respond to your post by pointing out that Sony didn't have to deal with the economical circumstances of the late 1980s and early 1990s where the average disposable income was lower while the average cost of electronics was higher. Additionally, the EU with its lack of tolls on goods between its member states wasn't a thing in the early days of Nintendo either. Those circumstantial factors notably push Nintendo's average down.

Disregard the above paragraph though. It's just an example of where we could be going in this thread, but it ultimately wouldn't matter because it won't have an impact on Switch's chances. If it isn't clear what I mean, whether we take the 21.2m or the 30.2m average you have presented, Switch is going to outperform the average either way, so it's pretty much a useless metric.

The most important point that this thread makes is that Europe is not Sonyland. Nintendo has sold plenty of consoles in Europe.

Your most important point at the bottom is fine. Nintendo has sold plenty of units of hardware and in terms of simply total gaming hardware sold, Sony is leading but couldn't be described as dominant. In terms of number of unique customers however that may be a different story.

The issue is when the data of 9 systems combined vs 5 systems combined, without averaging, is used as a means to determine or predict Switch's sales potential or markets fanbase size. You say it's a useless metric, yet a purpose of this thread seems to be to use the data to make some kind of assumption about the Switch, as seen by the need to accommodate it here. "But since Switch is the successor to both Nintendo's home console and handheld console lines, it is mandatory for handhelds to be included. Otherwise it would be impossible to make any sort of competent and credible analysis of the European market."

The figure (186.5m & 169.93m) cannot be used to determine the number of people who are PlayStation users vs Nintendo Users in Europe. As a devout Nintendo fan would have purchased 9+ systems, as opposed to a PlayStation fan purchasing 5+ systems, simply due to the number of systems available.

So any conclusions on total hardware sold, yeah that's perfectly fine. Directly comparing those numbers (186.5m & 169.93m) to determine the size of the fanbase in that region or the sales potential of a singular system, not fine.