PS5 Biggest Console Launch In History!

[Intrinsic]

DonFerrari said:

Shadow1980 said:

Stock is definitely important, too. I did mention it, if only in passing. Any system, even one that goes on to be a sales disappointment, can have a strong launch if there's adequate stock, and a system that dominates its generation could have a rough launch. We saw this in Gen 6, where the PS2 had a weaker launch than the OXbox and GameCube in the U.S., but still managed majority market share in its generation, even just limiting things to the 2002-2005 period. Likewise, the 360 and Wii both had mediocre launches, but now occupy the #2 and #3 positions for best-selling system ever in the U.S. (and they sold well globally).

Having a good launch is great, but in the long run it doesn't really matter. Regardless of how things turn out for 2020, the PS5 will undoubtedly sell very well. It's a good system with a promising first year.

I guess you skipped the point he wanted to make. It was that since the stock is the constrain with or without Japan and 1 or 2 weeks apart for Europe, then those are kinda irrelevant to discuss how big of a launch it was. It really was just as big as inventory was available, if they didn't launch in Japan and USA and put all the inventory in Europe it would probably had sold out same way.

Exactly... We can look at the stock in Japan, NA, EU...ROW or align them all we want. But those things don't really matter. The consoles being outstripped by demand regardless. Rumors are suggesting that sony sold ~2.5M PS5 in its worldwide launch week. They could have sent all those units to just NA and they would still have sold out. And sony would still call it their biggest launch ever. As @Shadow1980 said, even consoles that go on to flop can still sell out at launch.

I'll say the same thing that I said for the Switch, let's celebrate however well they are selling based on how much stock they can make, but we wouldn't really know how any of these new consoles are really doing until you can just waltz into a store and pick one up everywhere. At that point, we know the console's sales are no longer dictated by its stock. 

PS5 having the biggest launch, or doing better than the PS4 even in its first 4 months (while great btw), tells us absolutely nothing other than that sony has managed to make more PS5s than they made PS4s because even by February 2014 the PS4 was still supply limited. All these numbers would do now is just show us how quick the uptake is.

The biggest takeaway from this to me though is that $499 is now an acceptable price for a launch console.