Switch Sales Top 106M, XS Outsells PS5 - Global Hardware Mar 20-26

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curl-6 said:

Torpoleon said:

@curl-6 I agree, but it's also worth noting that there are much more people in the world now than there were when the Wii & PS1 launched (especially PS1). And in comparison to the Wii, it helps that the Switch is not seen as a gimmicky device appealing solely to non-gamers. The DS had no problems selling over 150m and launched 2 years before the Wii.

Well, most of the world's population increase comes from very poor countries that don't really factor significantly into console sales; PS4 and Xbone for example sold less than PS3 and 360 despite the world's population being bigger in Gen 8 than Gen 7.

While that is true, some of those countries also have developed quite a bit since then. Also, if we just take western Europe and North America, then the population grew by about 50M since the launch of the 360 between all those countries, so there ought to be higher sales in those countries if the population percentage that plays console games would stay the same.

However, as I could see in the Philippines (not sure if this is universal for developing countries), many people in developing countries who didn't grew up with a video gaming industry are shocked to see a $50 price tag for a game when they have games for free on their phones, and don't know the difference in production quality between the two kinds of games. Also, someone who grew up using the touchscreen as sole input device finds the many buttons on a controller confusing. I let my little nephew play Dragon Quest Builders and he got so utterly confused from being able to move the character and camera independently from each other with the analog sticks that he didn't manage to get out of the starting cave.