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.

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.

Your point about the Gamecube is not the same as the Switch wasn't out or even close to out when Iwata passed. Again, Iwata passed in July 2015 but the Switch didn't launch until another 21 months. They may have had an overall strategy or idea for the system at that time but a lot can change in roughly 2 years time. What you and others are assuming is that nothing changed from the inception to Iwata's depth and Kimishima did absolutely nothing but follow the plan. The actual launch and the solftware line-up is what you have to give credit to Kimishima for as he was president at the time. But you all don't want to give him that credit because he's not a sacred cow.

When I say he's a bad strategist unless he uses a book, what I mean is Iwata can't run a business unless he's using someone else's gameplan. The minute he goes off script the company goes off a cliff and has some of their worst loses. Iwata had to rely on those books because he had no business sense of his own. The success of the Wii and DS shows that 1)Those business books are good and 2)Nintendo makes good games. However, it doesn't really prove Iwata was skilled at what he did as, again, those were the only successes he had. When you consider that, it's clear that the books carried him, rather than Iwata's keen business sense leading the company to success. 

Iwata was someone who should never have been moved into the position he was in. He was a programmer without parallel and that's where he probably should have been. As a CEO, his results are mixed. I'll end on this. When Nintendo becomes incredibly successful after someone takes Iwata's job, it's hard to say he was a good businessman. 

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.

I know you're not being serious because of the ridiculous number but I imagine FFVII:R is gonna have a short-time marginal boost for PS4 hardware.