| Ninsect said: Reasoning being? WiiU is doing even worse than GC. XBOX One slightly better than XBOX 1 currently. PS4 breaking PS2's record. I don't see why not. Once the big games start coming out we'll see some domination, starting with Destiny. |
PS4 beat PS2's launch record in the US (and probably Europe). But that's really not enough on its own.
In Japan, PS4 has sold 653k since launch. For comparison, PS2 sold about 980k at launch, and 1.41 million units by the end of the launch month.
In Europe/Australia/North America, PS2 launched late October or in November (depending on specific region). By March of the next year, adding in Japanese sales numbers, Sony had shipped 10.6 million units. Much of this was Japan sales, of course - Sony's figures give 5.86 million outside of Japan. Using VGChartz numbers for those regions, we have 5.37 million. So in March, PS4 was tracking around the same as PS2 outside of Japan, and much worse inside Japan. Note that up to March has been corrected, and is consistent with data from other tracking companies.
By the end of June 2001, PS2 was at 9.01 million shipped outside of Japan. For comparison, if we assume 600k more between March and June than VGChartz has recorded, and none of that is in Japan (so all of July and the first week of August are being assumed, for this, to have no contribution to the "undertracking"), we're at about 8.6 million. If we assume it's spread more evenly, then by end of June we're at around 8.4 million.
So even if you're being generous, the best you can assert is that, outside of Japan, the PS4 is performing about the same as the PS2 did. Of course, realistically, we have to include Japan... where PS4 is doing far worse. And considering that, up to the start of Gen 7, Japan represented about 25% of PS2 sales, that's a pretty big chunk that's now missing.
As for Wii U, it's worth once again noting that things have shifted since the release of Mario Kart 8. The Wii U has held a healthy 60k per week every week since, with no additional support (note: "healthy" relative to what it was doing before MK8 released). If it only sold that much per week for the entire financial year, it would sell 3 million units. Now factor in bump weeks, holiday sales, and a likely price cut some time late this year or early next year, and it looks like Wii U has picked up the pace. Just to give you a sense of numbers, Gamecube averaged about 110k per week during the first six months of its second full financial year (April-September 2002). In that time, it received Super Mario Sunshine (Japan+NA), Resident Evil, Super Smash Bros Melee (PAL), and Star Fox Adventures (Japan+NA), to name a few. The point of that list, by the way, is that each of those games would have given the Gamecube a distinct bump... so how high do you think GC sales would be during its baseline? So while the Wii U might have been doing significantly worse than Gamecube before, it's now doing a more reasonable number.
Of course, I've been talking from the perspective of baseline sales. If you look at the average since the release of MK8, it jumps immediately to 75k per week. Note that Hyrule Warriors just released in Japan, and the sales numbers are in... Wii U sales in Japan jumped to 13.6k the week before, and kept going up to 18.2k the week it released.
Xbox One had a much stronger launch than the original Xbox. Xbox shipped 1.5 million in North America at launch through to the end of 2001. Xbox One sold (not shipped) 1.8 million in the US alone through to the end of 2013. Through to the end of 2002 (March-December), Xbox shipped 1.8 million to Europe. Xbox One has sold 1.2 million units in Europe to date (November-early August). Considering that this means it's missing August-November (a traditionally strong period) while Xbox was missing January-February (which is traditionally weak), this puts Xbox One on fairly strong footing in Europe. Xbox shipped 3.57 million in the US in its first 13 months. In 10 months, Xbox One has sold 3.2 million in the US.
Of course, some people are going to try to argue against what I've posted here, while missing the actual point. Hopefully, they read this last bit, and understand. My post isn't actually about the comparisons between PS2/PS4 and Gamecube/WiiU. It's about the fact that things can change. PS4 sales patterns have weakened when using the PS2 as a reference. Wii U sales patterns have strengthened when using the Gamecube as a reference. Xbox One has slightly weakened when using the Xbox as a reference, but not significantly so.
It's not about the actual numbers. It's about change. Looking at what it's done on average since launch isn't a good measure for determining future performance. And no, citing Destiny isn't a good way to argue why PS4 will strengthen and the others won't, since Xbox One has some notable (and some timed) exclusives, and Wii U has Smash Bros with Amiibos coming soon and Zelda next year (among some other notable titles, of course). All systems have some big-hitters on the way. You can anticipate strong performance for PS4. But it's absurd, based on what we know right now, to predict PS4 "domination".
