PS4 VS Switch lifetime sales, which console will sell the most?

[StarDoor]

thismeintiel said:

zorg1000 said:

Fair enough on price but your 57.1m figure is shipments and PS4 was very overshipped at the end of 2016, they had 3.7 million on shelves/in transit which is much higher than normal so it's not really the most accurate comparison.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2017/01/05/the-ps4-has-now-sold-53-4-million-units-worldwide-with-6-2-million-sales-over-the-2016-holidays/#4c22aa6c7b41

NSW shipments should be 54-55 million at the end of March with sell through over 52 million so about a ~1 million difference.

Ah, the old overshipped argument.  The problem with that is if that is the case, then the following slower quarter/s retailers will lower shipments to get rid of the extra stock.  Care to explain to me when that occurred, because:

Q1 2016: 2.3M vs Q1 2017: 2.9M - 600K in 2017's favor, total
Q2 2016: 3.5M vs Q2 2017: 3.3M - 400K in 2017's favor, total
Q3 2016: 3.9M vs Q3 2017: 4.2M - 700K in 2017's favor, total

I guess they just love having mountains of unsold PS4's lying around at all times.  So, yea, like I said, it will be 3M-4M ahead.  And shipment data is the only concrete data we have.  There are no estimates involved.

Interesting how you exclude the holiday quarters.

Q4 2016: 9.7M vs Q4 2017: 9.0M

Both years had total shipments of 19.4M. And contrary to what you say, shipment data isn't the only concrete data we have, because Sony has announced PS4 sell-through at the ends of every calendar year to date.

End of 2015: 35.9M
End of 2016: 53.4M (+17.5M)
End of 2017: 73.6M (+20.2M)

PS4 shipped 1.9M more than it sold during 2016, and it shipped 0.8M fewer than it sold during 2017. Your data reflects the fact that PS4 had faster sell-through in 2017 than it had in 2016. It doesn't rule out over-shipping during 2016.

Last edited by StarDoor - on 15 December 2019