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Forums - Sales Discussion - February NPD 2023 Thread + Predictions - NPD Renamed to Circana

Zippy6 on 29 March 2023
PotentHerbs said:

Massive month for the PlayStation 5! Even if Sony only manage to ship 5M this quarter, that would be higher than any non holiday month from the Switch, and would be the highest non holiday quarter for PlayStation consoles.

Hmmm... I thought that 6m would be an all-time record for Calendar Q1 but after looking into it it seems PS2 managed 6.08m in 2005. Here's the best shipments for this quarter from a few consoles.

6.08m PS2 (2005)
5.81m DS (2008)
5.43m Wii (2009)
4.73m Switch (2021)
3.42m PSP (2008)
3.00m PS4 (2014)
2.33m PS3 (2008)
2.10m 3DS (2012)

So if Sony met their forecast of 6m units it would be the 2nd best 1st quarter of a calendar year ever. I don't know if they will meet that or not but I think they can break the 5m mark which would still be only behind the DS/Wii/PS2's best.



Steam Deck Fangirl, Series X appreciator, PlayStation Games freak, Switch 2 Beggar.

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CosmicSex on 29 March 2023
Zippy6 said:
PotentHerbs said:

Massive month for the PlayStation 5! Even if Sony only manage to ship 5M this quarter, that would be higher than any non holiday month from the Switch, and would be the highest non holiday quarter for PlayStation consoles.

Hmmm... I thought that 6m would be an all-time record for Calendar Q1 but after looking into it it seems PS2 managed 6.08m in 2005. Here's the best shipments for this quarter from a few consoles.

6.08m PS2 (2005)
5.81m DS (2008)
5.43m Wii (2009)
4.73m Switch (2021)
3.42m PSP (2008)
3.00m PS4 (2014)
2.33m PS3 (2008)
2.10m 3DS (2012)

So if Sony met their forecast of 6m units it would be the 2nd best 1st quarter of a calendar year ever. I don't know if they will meet that or not but I think they can break the 5m mark which would still be only behind the DS/Wii/PS2's best.

I think Trunks or someone calculated that in order to reach the goal Sony would need to push 6.2 million shipments which would be just over 100k more than the 2005 PS2 Q1 record.  So yes it would be the 1st best not second.  



Zippy6 on 29 March 2023
CosmicSex said:

I think Trunks or someone calculated that in order to reach the goal Sony would need to push 6.2 million shipments which would be just over 100k more than the 2005 PS2 Q1 record.  So yes it would be the 1st best not second.  

Ah that's right. It was 6.2m not 6.0m forecast. So yeah 1st is still a possibility.



Steam Deck Fangirl, Series X appreciator, PlayStation Games freak, Switch 2 Beggar.

Console Launch Aligned Sales Charts

Famitsu Sales Database

VGChartz Monthly Sales Database

Farsala on 29 March 2023
trunkswd said:

PS5 set a PlayStation record for February. So sales for February in the US are >538K. 

Based on his comment, that probably means PS5 did not surpass the record for combined Playstation sales. Anyone know the record for PSP+ PS or PSV+ PS?



Zippy6 on 30 March 2023
Farsala said:
trunkswd said:

PS5 set a PlayStation record for February. So sales for February in the US are >538K. 

Based on his comment, that probably means PS5 did not surpass the record for combined Playstation sales. Anyone know the record for PSP+ PS or PSV+ PS?

February 2008 PlayStation systems combined sold 876k.

PS2 - 352k, PS3 - 281k, PSP - 243k



Steam Deck Fangirl, Series X appreciator, PlayStation Games freak, Switch 2 Beggar.

Console Launch Aligned Sales Charts

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CosmicSex on 31 March 2023

I feel that the Xbox and Switch might be over-tracked due to this tweet from Mat.   Saying 'far more difficult to find' implies that we might not really be aware of the real supply situation.   It also implies that PS5 could have somehow sold more that it did if it had more stock which is really mind-blowing right there.  For Xbox and Switch if we need to make minor adjustments in the future we can look to this a a potential reason.  We probably wont see real stock stability until the second half of this year.



Zippy6 on 31 March 2023
CosmicSex said:

I feel that the Xbox and Switch might be over-tracked due to this tweet from Mat.   Saying 'far more difficult to find' implies that we might not really be aware of the real supply situation.   It also implies that PS5 could have somehow sold more that it did if it had more stock which is really mind-blowing right there.  For Xbox and Switch if we need to make minor adjustments in the future we can look to this a a potential reason.  We probably wont see real stock stability until the second half of this year.

Xbox sales/stock in March for the USA is seemingly abysmal from the information we have gotten from Wallmart and Amazon online sales numbers. But that tweet doesn't seem to mention anything about the Switch.



Steam Deck Fangirl, Series X appreciator, PlayStation Games freak, Switch 2 Beggar.

Console Launch Aligned Sales Charts

Famitsu Sales Database

VGChartz Monthly Sales Database

CosmicSex on 31 March 2023
Zippy6 said:
CosmicSex said:

I feel that the Xbox and Switch might be over-tracked due to this tweet from Mat.   Saying 'far more difficult to find' implies that we might not really be aware of the real supply situation.   It also implies that PS5 could have somehow sold more that it did if it had more stock which is really mind-blowing right there.  For Xbox and Switch if we need to make minor adjustments in the future we can look to this a a potential reason.  We probably wont see real stock stability until the second half of this year.

Xbox sales/stock in March for the USA is seemingly abysmal from the information we have gotten from Wallmart and Amazon online sales numbers. But that tweet doesn't seem to mention anything about the Switch.

The reason why I included the Switch is because we know that the two consoles have to be in the same ballpark unit sold wise for the Switch to still win units and the Xbox to win $$.  In other words we know that the Switch sales can't be too much higher than the Xbox otherwise the math doesn't square. 

What would make this incorrect is if the VAST majority of the Xbox consoles sold were the $550 bundle.  They yes the Switch could be right and its just the Xbox thats overtracked.  I acknowledge this.  So thats why I said 'IF' we have to do adjustments for the Switch and we are looking where to adjust, we might want to remember to look here.  It probably wont make that much of a difference though.  Just being mindful.



trunkswd on 31 March 2023
CosmicSex said:

I feel that the Xbox and Switch might be over-tracked due to this tweet from Mat.   Saying 'far more difficult to find' implies that we might not really be aware of the real supply situation.   It also implies that PS5 could have somehow sold more that it did if it had more stock which is really mind-blowing right there.  For Xbox and Switch if we need to make minor adjustments in the future we can look to this a a potential reason.  We probably wont see real stock stability until the second half of this year.

In March Series X stock has been terrible, which is what I was thinking he was referring to. February wasn't great, but not as bad as March. Xbox Series S stock isn't too bad and the reason Xbox Series sales aren't even worse. Of course, as always once more data comes in we always adjust our estimates to be more accurate. 



VGChartz Sales Analyst and Writer - William D'Angelo - I stream on Twitch and have my own YouTube. Follow me on Twitter @TrunksWD.

Writer of the Sales Comparison | Weekly Hardware Breakdown | Top 10 | Weekly Sales Analysis | Marketshare Features, as well as daily news on the Video Game Industry.

CosmicSex on 31 March 2023
trunkswd said:
CosmicSex said:

I feel that the Xbox and Switch might be over-tracked due to this tweet from Mat.   Saying 'far more difficult to find' implies that we might not really be aware of the real supply situation.   It also implies that PS5 could have somehow sold more that it did if it had more stock which is really mind-blowing right there.  For Xbox and Switch if we need to make minor adjustments in the future we can look to this a a potential reason.  We probably wont see real stock stability until the second half of this year.

In March Series X stock has been terrible, which is what I was thinking he was referring to. February wasn't great, but not as bad as March. Xbox Series S stock isn't too bad and the reason Xbox Series sales aren't even worse. Of course, as always once more data comes in we always adjust our estimates to be more accurate. 

Oh okay got it.