| tack50 said: Worth noting that the Switch did indeed release in March and it seems to have had no real impact on its sales, it is selling really well. In fact it might arguably be slightly better to release a console in spring as opposed to winter, as the extra months will allow for more games to come out. The 3DS also seems to have released in March, and although initial sales were very poor, the system sellers of Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land plus the price cut seem to have saved it just in time. Then again excluding the Switch hybrid console, no "proper" home console has launched outside the autumn/winter period since (depending on what region you live in): Europe & Japan: The original Xbox (NA launch was in autumn, but JP/EU got it in spring 2002) I wonder if the huge flop of the Sega Saturn and its infamously rushed launch caused companies to be extremely averse to a home console launch outside autumn in North America. Even in Europe and Japan lanuches outside that period are rare. |
I think it is also worth noting that the PS2 was released in japan on March. This probably gave it a little room to have enough stock for the holidays in the rest of the world, here is a table of each Quarter for the PS2 (commulative)
| Date | Asia (including Japan) | North America | Europe | Worldwide |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 31, 2000[2] | 1.41 | N/A | N/A | 1.41 |
| June 30, 2000[2] | 2.54 | N/A | N/A | 2.54 |
| September 30, 2000[2] | 3.52 | N/A | N/A | 3.52 |
| December 31, 2000[2] | 3.94 | 1.46 | 1 | 6.4 |
| March 31, 2001[2] | 4.75 | 3.01 | 2.85 | 10.61 |
By the time the holidays came around it had already sold 3.5M units, I'm pretty sure this helped them with being able to keep up with demand. The PS5 has sold right now 3.7M units, and it is looking like it might reach around 4.5 for 2020. PS2 was able to sell 6.4 for the year 2000.
These are the first 12 months of both the PS4 and the NS (month 1=January for both).
If you compare the PS4 first two months of launch(November+December) you get that it sold 4.2M compared to the NS Launch(March+April) that got 3.1M but if you look at the NS first holiday it sold 6M while if you look at the PS4 first March+April it was 1.6M.
So if you add the two periods for both you get that the PS4 sold 5.8M in those 4 months vs 9.1M of the NS.
I like the idea of being able to have a great launch month and then having another great period with the holidays. For this reason it makes sense to me that companies try to launch in March instead of November next time around.
But in the end it really comes down to how good the product is, PS4 and Wii sold great amounts on their first 12 months.
| Year | X360 | DS | Wii | PS3 | PSP | 3DS | PSV | WiiU | PS4 | XONE | NS |
| 1 | 5,094,715 | 7,928,196 | 14,519,705 | 5,765,638 | 7,460,529 | 13,515,897 | 3,468,581 | 3,643,090 | 13,210,686 | 6,404,349 | 15,071,420 |
