I don't agree that PS2 had better legs than the DS. 

Nintendo easily could have sold the DS at $79.99 for example for several more years but they choked its shipments to peanuts on purpose. 

If anything the DS was punished (just as the PS4) for having sales at a level too high that it was seen as a possible interfering factor for the 3DS.

Same thing with PS4 ... Sony doesn't want to sell PS4s, not because they couldn't sell them at $199.99 ... they could probably sell another 7-10 million PS4s at $199.99 ... but they refuse to offer consumers that option. 

So is this actually an issue of "legs"? No it's not. 

This isn't the case of the DS or PS4 not having market demand, if anything their death warrant is written because they definitely *could* sell several million units at a discounted price and Nintendo and Sony don't want people spending their money there. These systems are basically being punished for being basically stubbornly popular for too long. 

If it was the case that the PS2 simply was more popular at age 9/10/11 for example and DS and PS4 simply could not sell even at a budget price by that time, sure I'd agree, but that isn't really the case if we're being honest. 

This is why I think it's better to just compare like the relevant first 7-8 years of a product cycle. That tells you in better reality which system was actually more popular without interference or "we have to sell our next-gen systems" politics getting in the way. 

(..)

I also like to look into movie record sales whereas some older movie actually sold better than the current champions if you consider inflation, that we have much more cinemas today and the movies are shown in more countries (incl. big ones like China). However, ultimately, the raw numbers are what count, that's what people are interested in, fair or unfair doesn't matter. But to come back to PS2-DS-PS4 sales comparison, it's a far more clear win for PS2 compared to the movies because those arguing with inflation have a much stronger point than reasons like Soundwave bring up.

Something you are missing is that PS2 didn't take 11 years to hit 150m in most markets. The console had very late launches in a ton of territories. starting with Japan and then 9 months later in America and then Europe. Korea and Taiwan didn't launch until 2002. India and China didn't launch until 2003. Brazil didn't launch until 2009 (!) . Many other markets like the Middle East also had late launches.

This is where the origination of the myth "Ps consoles have good legs" comes from, and why a lot of people expected the Ps4 to sell much better than it did, simply due to the launch timings of these different consoles. Ps4 having a global launch made it easy to break shipment records, even in "launch aligned" comparisons.

Let's settle this: if people were willing to buy 154 and 157 million DS and PS2, that tells how appealing the consoles were. No matter how long they lasted.

The 3DS lasted like forever and had 47 SKUs and sold at a very low price at the end and couldn't reach 80 million.

Let's settle this: if people were willing to buy 154 and 157 million DS and PS2, that tells how appealing the consoles were. No matter how long they lasted.

The 3DS lasted like forever and had 47 SKUs and sold at a very low price at the end and couldn't reach 80 million.

Pretty much people just blindly looking at numbers without putting zero context or thought into those numbers.

If the PS2 had the same thing happen to it that the DS did (Sony choosing the cut PS2 shipments to a trickle after its 7th birthday) ... the PS2 would've finished at 125-128 million LTD. 

The PS2 benefitted from the PS3 being a turd out of the gates because it was an expensive turd ($600, almost $900 today with inflation) and Sony thus decided to keep selling/shipping the dirt cheap PS2 because the two products were miles apart in pricing/audience. Might as well collect whatever ancillary profit the PS2 was bringing in while the PS3 was struggling. 

The 3DS on the other hand got punished for no reason because the 3DS had a poor launch and Nintendo axed the 3DS price within 6 months and then wanted to steer all buyers towards the $169.99 3DS instead of the $129.99 DS (no where near the price difference there). 

That's not a fair 1:1 situation both machines were in (for factors outside of their control) and has nothing to do with their respective "demand". DS gets punished for the 3DS starting poorly, whereas the PS2 got massively rewarded for the PS3 starting like shit. Which isn't anything to be that proud of, like Sony or Nintendo would not want to repeat the PS2-to-PS3 scenario in any way, shape, or form (it's why in the modern market, Sony just killed the PS4 outright ... you're buying a PS5 or nothing from Sony is their message). 

I think we should stop this discussion. You will not convince the others from your definition and vice versa. Sales numbers are first and foremost for the business to analyse, the rest (like us, although I myself was and probably will be again a shareholder of Nintendo) can do with these numbers whatever they want. You interpret the sales data in your way and that's perfectly fine others interpret them differently and that's perfectly fine too.

What I share with you is that I'm interested in the details: Why did a certain console had a slow start? Why has a certain console very strong late years... .