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Forums - Gaming - NPD: Playstation 4 was the Best Selling Console of 2017 in the U.S.

Intrinsic said:
LipeJJ said:

The launch is indeed important and is a lot bigger than a normal month, but that doesn't change the fact that the launch year is usually some of the worst years for a console (usually, not always). So in the end the launch month is kind of meaningless in the full year when sales plummet in the months afterwards and stay low due to the small library. That's what happens most of the time when a console launches. In the case of Switch it was even worse cause it had supply issues through the whole year. On top of that, we're comparing its launch year to PS4's peak (or very close to it). 

With 2 months more last year they would be virtually tied, because like you said Switch did 250k on average on non-hot months, so we should hipotetically add another 500k to that 4.9m figure, giving something around 5.4m. Isn't that impressive? ^^ 

You know what would be a fair comparison? March 2017 to March 2018. This way we'd have full data and the same timeframe for both. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

The PS4 had a very simalr launch, it too was also having stock issues. And it even had a meme that the NS has still somehow managed not to have "it has no games". So no.

Simple fact of the matter is this, regardless of however you want to look at it, we cannot talk about the swicth sales this year and compare it to sales of a 4 year old console and not take into account that the switch had more "hot months" than a year or ever two year old console would have much more a 4 year old one. Thats just fact.

And stock issues aren't really issues in the grand scheme of things, because it just means teher is a lot of demand for a certain product. And I dare say the form factors of the PS4/XB1 vs the Switch is so different, that I doubt anyone goes into a store to buy a switch and walks out with a PS4 inatead if spending the exact same amount of money. 

And lastly, even the March 2017 to march 2018 (1 year) isn't honestly a fair way to compare them. As I said earlier, Nintendo just fucked up the whole comparison battle..... (i believe they did it on purpose to fuck with us at VGC). Why wouldn't it be fair? PS4s launch and poor stock period was in November till around april 2014. If we count the PS4s first 12 months then the PS4 will still have only a launch window to show for itself and not its first holiday window. Whereas the first 12 months of the Switch has both the Launch window and first holiday window. Now because of Nintendo weird launch timeline.... best we can do is compare the first 14 months of the consoles. That way both consoles have their launch and holiday windows accounted for.

It doesn't really matter that PS4 is 4 years old if it's on its peak or close to it. If anything, it's impressive Switch is doing similar numbers on its first year. If you want to compare the 1st year for both, Switch will obviously come on top anyway.

Btw, 14 months doesn't make sense simply cause PS4 would have a full holiday + 1 month and a half of another holiday, which was launch, but it really doesn't matter that much cause companies will simply ship more on holidays because they know demand will be higher, be it launch or not.



Bet with Teeqoz for 2 weeks of avatar and sig control that Super Mario Odyssey would ship more than 7m on its first 2 months. The game shipped 9.07m, so I won

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LipeJJ said:
Intrinsic said:

Ok..... so lets be honest here..

Are you saying taht the launch month of a console is no different from any other normal month? Because if you are gonna make the argument that one console has two months less on the market.... shouldn't you also mention that said console was launched and had its first holiday season within those 10 months?

On non "hot" months the NS averaged around 250K/month. It lost 2017 by 568k. Now even if we give it those two months at that 250k average it still loses. Butthen you have to consider something..... if this wasn't the launch year, would it have sold 900k in any normal month? My money is on no. But when it does sell up to 900k in a normal month (jan-oct) in NA over the next 4 years please feel free to call me out on that.

The launch is indeed important and is a lot bigger than a normal month, but that doesn't change the fact that the launch year is usually some of the worst years for a console (usually, not always). So in the end the launch month is kind of meaningless in the full year when sales plummet in the months afterwards and stay low due to the small library. That's what happens most of the time when a console launches. In the case of Switch it was even worse cause it had supply issues through the whole year. On top of that, we're comparing its launch year to PS4's peak (or very close to it). 

With 2 months more last year they would be virtually tied, because like you said Switch did 250k on average on non-hot months, so we should hipotetically add another 500k to that 4.9m figure, giving something around 5.4m. Isn't that impressive? ^^ 

You know what would be a fair comparison? March 2017 to March 2018. This way we'd have full data and the same timeframe for both. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

The main reason consoles in high demand like wii, ps2, and ps4 have bad first years is stock problems, they launch during the holidays with just stock enough stock to meet launch demand resulting in them not getting real holiday boosts, which is huge. reading your post above that companies will ship more because of the holidays is false, they usually just ship what they can, switch shipments were very similar to ps4 during the holidays 2.74 million for 27 days vs 4.2 for 45 days. 



quickrick said:
LipeJJ said:

The launch is indeed important and is a lot bigger than a normal month, but that doesn't change the fact that the launch year is usually some of the worst years for a console (usually, not always). So in the end the launch month is kind of meaningless in the full year when sales plummet in the months afterwards and stay low due to the small library. That's what happens most of the time when a console launches. In the case of Switch it was even worse cause it had supply issues through the whole year. On top of that, we're comparing its launch year to PS4's peak (or very close to it). 

With 2 months more last year they would be virtually tied, because like you said Switch did 250k on average on non-hot months, so we should hipotetically add another 500k to that 4.9m figure, giving something around 5.4m. Isn't that impressive? ^^ 

You know what would be a fair comparison? March 2017 to March 2018. This way we'd have full data and the same timeframe for both. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

The main reason consoles in high demand like wii, ps2, and ps4 have bad first years is stock problems, they launch during the holidays with just stock enough stock to meet launch demand resulting in them not getting real holiday boosts, which is huge. reading your post above that companies will ship more because of the holidays is false, they usually just ship what they can, switch shipments were very similar to ps4 during the holidays 2.74 million for 27 days vs 4.2 for 45 days. 

You just confirmed my point: they ship what they can. And obviously they prepare better simply bc they know demand for launch will be high bc it's on a holiday. 

Btw, those numbers are not similar AT ALL. Switch didn't sell 1.5m on the next 18 days after it sold 2.7m on its first 27 days. It actually did only 1.9m for April + May + June.



Bet with Teeqoz for 2 weeks of avatar and sig control that Super Mario Odyssey would ship more than 7m on its first 2 months. The game shipped 9.07m, so I won

LipeJJ said:
quickrick said:

The main reason consoles in high demand like wii, ps2, and ps4 have bad first years is stock problems, they launch during the holidays with just stock enough stock to meet launch demand resulting in them not getting real holiday boosts, which is huge. reading your post above that companies will ship more because of the holidays is false, they usually just ship what they can, switch shipments were very similar to ps4 during the holidays 2.74 million for 27 days vs 4.2 for 45 days. 

You just confirmed my point: they ship what they can. And obviously they prepare better simply bc they know demand for launch will be high bc it's on a holiday. 

most of the time they rush the holiday launch, and are not really prepared at all. wii, 360, and ps2,  switch had more stock then those consoles during none holiday launch. ps3 couldn't launch in europe during the holidays because of stock problems. so everything points to being more prepared as being false. ps4 also couldn't launch in japan during the holidays.



quickrick said:
LipeJJ said:

You just confirmed my point: they ship what they can. And obviously they prepare better simply bc they know demand for launch will be high bc it's on a holiday. 

most of the time they rush the holiday launch, and are not really prepared at all. wii, 360, and ps2,  switch had more stock then those consoles during none holiday periods, ps3 couldn't launch in europe during the holidays because of stock problems. so everything points to being more prepared as being false.

Wii was unprepared simply because Nintendo never expected it to be that successful in the first place. 360 didn't do very well on its first years anyway. And I honestly don't know it went down with PS2, but it's so old that I don't know if its launch is comparable to anything new. Demand is always higher on holidays, be it a launch period or not, so there's nothing that points towards the opposite really.

But fair enough... how about comparing both Switch's and PS4's first 12 months and also first 14 months? If that makes more sense to you guys, so be it. It's fair from all point of views, I guess.

Last edited by LipeJJ - on 21 January 2018

Bet with Teeqoz for 2 weeks of avatar and sig control that Super Mario Odyssey would ship more than 7m on its first 2 months. The game shipped 9.07m, so I won

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LipeJJ said:
quickrick said:

most of the time they rush the holiday launch, and are not really prepared at all. wii, 360, and ps2,  switch had more stock then those consoles during none holiday periods, ps3 couldn't launch in europe during the holidays because of stock problems. so everything points to being more prepared as being false.

Wii was unprepared simply because Nintendo never expected it to be that successful in the first place. 360 didn't do very well on its first years. I honestly don't know it went down with PS2, but it's so old that I don't know if its launch is comparable to anything new. Demand is always higher on holidays, be it a launch period or not, so there's nothing really that points towards the opposite really.

360 was sold out for months in the states, it had a bad first year because of stock issues, ps2 had insane shortages as well many people have confirmed this, as for the switch vs ps4 numbers shipments numbers, let's put switch at 3.3 million shipments in 45 days vs 4.2 million ps4 in 45 days, were looking at a 900k disadavantage  WW during the none holiday period for switch when there should be  at least 3 million advantage in sales on a regular stocked holiday.

Last edited by quickrick - on 21 January 2018

quickrick said:
outlawauron said:

I mean, that's not really true. When games were designed for PS3 first, then ported to 360, performance drastically improved. The 360 to PS3 ports were awful. I remember Oblivion being delayed like 9 months because they wanted to get it working properly.

even when games were lead on ps3, 360 games till were on par or sometimes better like DMC4, and metal gear rising, along with dead space.what does that tell you? 360 was better designed hardware, and came out a year earlier. 

I could be mis-remembering, but I'm pretty certain those instances are where PS3 outdid 360. Much like the aforementioned Oblivion, Burnout Paradise, etc.



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outlawauron said:
quickrick said:

even when games were lead on ps3, 360 games till were on par or sometimes better like DMC4, and metal gear rising, along with dead space.what does that tell you? 360 was better designed hardware, and came out a year earlier. 

I could be mis-remembering, but I'm pretty certain those instances are where PS3 outdid 360. Much like the aforementioned Oblivion, Burnout Paradise, etc.

i mean oblivion is a much later enhanced port, but typically lead games on ps3 were on par or slightly better on 360 or slightly better on ps3. 360 had no problem, which makes it better hardware to me.



outlawauron said:
quickrick said:

even when games were lead on ps3, 360 games till were on par or sometimes better like DMC4, and metal gear rising, along with dead space.what does that tell you? 360 was better designed hardware, and came out a year earlier. 

I could be mis-remembering, but I'm pretty certain those instances are where PS3 outdid 360. Much like the aforementioned Oblivion, Burnout Paradise, etc.

Keep in mind you are replying to someone that thinks a machine that failed at an almost 50% rate is "better designed hardware".

 I don't think anything will get through to him.