All purpose Sales and Sales Rumours and Anecdotes [2019 Edition]

It's not a fact really though... The comparison is not valid due to PS2 not launching WW simultaneously. Best method to compare the sales between the two platforms would be to compare them per region from launch in those regions ( totaling 6 years of sales from every region for both consoles) , that metric has the PS2 ahead by around 10M units. I think in Europe PS4 is doing the best against PS2 though.

 

I’d like to see how you get to 10m, but either way what is a clear fact is that PS4 has been selling alongside much stronger opponents than PS2 did.

 

I believe ps4 can break ps2 sales record but that comes with few giant caveats. Sony has to push ps4 price below 200$ and produce content that mainstream people desire and make it clear ps4 is not at the end of road thanks to ps5 compatibility. Nobody wants to buy dead console. One holiday season with right price, bundle and marketing campaign+message can give giant push to ps4.

I doubt crowd who wants to buy cheap console is same as who is looking to get much more expensive ps5. There is space for both ps4 and ps5.

 

I took the figures from this page. (loads a bit slow...)
https://web.archive.org/web/20120609161654/http://scei.co.jp/corporate/data/bizdataps2_e.html

Initially I took the figures from the end of September 2006 column, which had Playstation 2 at 111.25M units and rounded the difference to around 10M. I had forgotten though that PS4 launched later in Japan, Feb 2014 actually..., So I should have used the 2005 September figure for Japan, which lowers the difference to 108.96M-102.8M = 6.16 Million units.

I do feel like PS4 still could have plenty of sales left in it. If they can lower the price it does have the potential to reach a very high number. The console still feels quite a bit more fresh to me than PS2 did back in the day, but it had that lower price going for it.

In defence of PS2's market conditions, I have to say that its competition were more advanced/powerful than it and PS2 had to face a rival next gen system on its fifth year on the market and had a successor on the market from Sony on the 6th year. Those events typically start to signal the end of the road for a system and PS4 gets to have that date later from launch.

 

8bit (NES, Master System)
80 million

16 bit (SNES, Mega Drive, Turbografx)
95 million
Gameboy
120 million

3D (PS1, N64, Saturn)
145 million

Gen 6 (PS2, XB, GC, DC)
210 million
GameBoy Advance
80 million

Gen 7 (PS3, XB360, Wii)
270 million
Handhelds (DS, PSP)
230 million

Gen 8 (PS4, XB1, NSW)
190-195 million so far?

Clearly the console market is growing YoY which helps PS4's chances, as even if selling to a smaller segment than PS2 due to stiffer competition, the market is potentially larger.

 

The PS2 had the DS since 2004 though, sold more then the PS4 still.

The gaming market is growing so the PS4 could come close, if games are cross developed for many years to come alongside PS5. The downside of that is that most games won't be all that exceptional looking.

 

I don't think games will be cross-ported downwards in significant numbers. There's no reason for PS4's generation to be different to PS1 or PS2, with content being made for them as long as they were selling, and a few landmark titles like FIFA and COD getting last-gen versions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PlayStation_2_games

Arranged by most recent, I think these are on the whole PS2 specific games. There's a fair few children's brands in there like Ben10, Dora the Explorer, and Disney Sing-It, that I think are lacking on PS4 and I think only existed on PS2 because of its super low price.

 

The PS2 had a long production run also, and damn, games still being released 13 years after it launched

 

DS was not a competitor to PS2.

 

And so isn't the switch to PS4 then.

 

Switch is because it can be used as a home console, and we know it is used as such by the majority of NSW owners (70% use it either as console only or both console and handheld IIRC). Ring Fitness is not a handheld game and is an example of the demographic pushing experiences that I feel PS4 lacks.

 

As shifty says - the switch can be seen as a direct option to PS4, its the only way to play the latest Nintendo games (including their massively popular franchises like Mario and Zelda) on a TV. If you want to fudge the figures then just count 70% of the total sold.

 

I think more people play on PCs and tablets these days. A large part of the people who only play Fortnite, Minecraft, Dota, LoL etc would probably have bought a console in the past. Now they are happy with playing only one game.

 

I don't think the sales numbers back that up. Console market itself is growing every generation, as well as PC and mobile markets. Gaming has just become a mainstream pastime now, like TV, rather than just being a young geek niche.

 

The console market has shrunk, a lot, this last generation in terms of volume. It more or less holds its ground in terms of value. The growth in gaming revenue is mostly in mobile. (PC gaming revenue numbers are muddied by lack of clarity as to what sales gets filed under "gaming".)
In terms of console revenue, less people pay more pro capita, basically.
I would very much question whether it has become "mainstream". But of course it depends on what you mean by the word. If a migration away from owning dedicated gaming hardware to playing games on cell phones counts, then sure.

 

Not in console hardware sales which I listed.
Last gen saw 270 million home consoles sold. This gen is already approaching 200 million and will likely surpass last-gen's total, like every previous gen has sold more consoles.

As for being mainstream, 50% of US households have a console. It's a universal activity, rather than a niche as it used to be.

 

PS2 represented a massive leap forward in visuals, it was a transition that even the most non-technically minded could perceive on a 32" TV from eight feet away. 4:3 to 16:9, doubling of vertical resolution of 240p to 480p and just look at Tomb Raider 4 on PS1 compared to Anniversary on PS2 to see how far character models, level geometry and lighting improved. PS1 was technically archaic when PS2 launched. PS4 has games like RDR2, Spider-Man. Yeah, the console is old and creaking, but the games look great and they're getting better. It's definitely less desperate than previous generations.

As I said back in this post, it isn't known how PS4/Pro and PS5 games will be packaged/bundled or sold or if devs will have some mechanics to tap into the hardware of PS5, like PS4 Pro, or if PS5 leverages PS5's hardware as part of the backwards compatibility solution - Xbox One X running 360 games. If so, then there will be a much greater incentive for publishers to continue targeting that massive user base with tweaks for PS5 much like Pro. If I'm Ubisoft, remembering back to the PS3/PS5 (and 360/XBO), you remember making games for five platforms, PC plus four consoles. 360/PS3 definitely got the short end of the stick in terms of quality products and it doesn't need to be that way, nor should it - those older markets are easily the largest market probably for a couple of years.

There are some key invisible parts of the equation. As it is, having backwards compatibility from day one will impact the economics of the console industry. It was always expected that when you buy a new console you would get at least one new game - otherwise you'd have little to play. If PS5 plays PS4 games better than PS4 Pro then I bet we'll see folks with a PS4 and Pro buying a PS5 just for that benefit alone - even if the PS5 launch lineup is lacklustre and skip PS5-only/versions of games.

This transition is going to be very interesting.

 

I didn’t think about the obvious ‘switch mini’ when switch 2 comes out...that would see it surpass the PS2, but it’s hardly a fair comparison as it’d be skewed by the pocket portable aspect.

To me this this shows how well PS4 is selling and it’s potential to beat PS2. PS2 ended up at ~75% of the market with not much competition and PS4 sits at ~60% yet selling quicker.

 

The thing is the price of the PS2 dropped to really low levels during specials that I don't think PS4 has a chance of dropping to.

 

Selling quicker doesn't matter much - see Wii. PS2 sold in good numbers 5 years after its peak - it's that tail that pushed it out furthest.



If PS4 nose-dives like PS1 or Wii, it won't make the numbers. All we know for sure is PS4 is on the downturn. I can't find a more recent graph that this Ars one which doesn't show PS4's latest decline.