Intrinsic said:
I've never quite understood this argument. A staggered launch is a meaningless qualifier to use. And is only relevant if it can be shown that they had the stock to meet the demand of a global launch. Another way to look at it is like this. Between March and September, 2000 sony shipped ~7M PS2 in Japan alone. In the first 6 weeks alone of the PS4 sony shipped(and sold) over 4.3M PS4s in everywhere but Japan. So lets flip perspectives a bit... If sony had a global launch of the PS2, there is NOTHING indicating that they would have been able to make anything more than the 7M PS2s they shipped in the first 6 months of the PS2s life. At the end of the day, all that really matters is how much of a product a company can make and not where they are selling it or not. |
Obviously a company is going to plan production differently when they launch in just 1 country vs launching in 50+ countries.
Global (or semi-global) launches did not become common until the 7th gen and that needs to be factored in when comparing launch aligned sales, it just doesnt make sense to compare the sales of 1 country to 50+ countries.
When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.