Global Hardware 27 July 2019

[Bofferbrauer2]

Barkley said:

Pinkie_pie said:

Total domination for a console in its 6th year. A 6 year old nintendo system had never and will never sell as well as the ps4 in its 6th year

6th year sales (from time on market, not 6th calendar year.)

DS - 20.62m
PS2 - 16.22m
360 - 13.81m
PS3 - 12.15m
PS1 - 9.31m
PSP - 9.24m
3DS - 7.48m
Wii - 4.41m
Vita - 0.74m
WiiU - 0m

So yeah as has always been pointed out the DS wins, but then for the second best we go all the way down to 7.48m for the 3DS. DS really was very different in terms of it's sales curve compared to other Nintendo Consoles.

Here's a table showing how many of a systems total sales came from it's first 4 years on market:

	First 4 Years
WiiU	99.10%
Wii	83.20%
Vita	81.10%
3DS	68.00%
DS	60.40%
PSP	57.40%
PS1	53.20%
PS3	53.20%
PS2	46.00%
X360	43.40%

So Nintendo consoles are definitely much more front loaded than others, with DS being the one with the longest sales curve. So for the most part Nintendo consoles sell fast for a shorter time, while PS/MS systems last longer.

zorg1000 said:

Gameboy released in April 1989 and shipped over 36 million from April 1999-March 2001. That's ~18 million/year a decade after launch.

Personally I don't count GBC sales towards the original Gameboy, it's a system with 480 exclusive retail games, and it came out 9 years after the original. I find it weird to not view it as a successor but I know most people don't.

I mean it's sales curve clearly show it's not normal.

Also Gameboy is classed as 4th generation and GBC as 5th generation so it's weird to view them as the same. I think the main reason is just because Nintendo grouped the sales.

They probably grouped the Gameboys because they could play each other's games. Sure the GBC had better capabilities, but by that logic, Pro, X and New 3DS would also need to be counted separately.

As for the fourth and sixth year sales, any idea how the NES, SNES and Megadrive/Genesis would fit in these tables?