That was my point. My comment only concerned third party games that are available on other platforms.
Nintendo Switch sales numbers
- Thread starter mpg1
- Start date
That was my point. My comment only concerned third party games that are available on other platforms.
DuckThor Evil
Legend
Launching at a different time of the year makes this comparison imo almost completely invalid. Here the Switch is just after a holiday season at 10 months, whereas the PS4 is just entering into it in a couple of months. Switch had 2 different high sales periods. the launch in March and the holiday season. PS4 had those lumped together in year 1 with somewhat limited supply. The numbers won't be as great that way. Let's see how this graph looks like after 15 months for a more fair comparison point.
A 15 month comparison would not make this fairer. If your argument is the original launches were at different times of the year and therefore distort the 1st year numbers....then you'd need to wait for the complete second year sales data in order to get a full year absent the effects of launch.
Either way I'm not convinced Switch is going to let up in any way. Japan has basically bought into this as the successor to 3DS and there's a ~18M unit gap between what PS4 and 3DS has sold in Japan. Add future price cuts/Pokemon releasing it's going to sell a lot of units.
Yes Switch launched at a far better time of year. Remember when most games launched in the run up to xmas, It took them many years but now they realize they get better sales if they don't try to release all around the same time, wow thats a revelation.
I could never understand why release a console at November? Illogical, you're gonna nearly sell what you can produce whatever month you release (even the Wii U sold out on release true that was november but it would of been the same if it was eg June cause theres always early adopters/hardcore fans)
Surely its better to have the launch spike and then some months later during xmas get another spike, where most likely you wont be as supply constrained.
I can understand launching in November if you're not supply constrained but AFAIKR ps1,p2,ps3,ps4,xb1,xb360,xb1 etc were all supply constrained at launch
I could never understand why release a console at November? Illogical, you're gonna nearly sell what you can produce whatever month you release (even the Wii U sold out on release true that was november but it would of been the same if it was eg June cause theres always early adopters/hardcore fans)
Surely its better to have the launch spike and then some months later during xmas get another spike, where most likely you wont be as supply constrained.
I can understand launching in November if you're not supply constrained but AFAIKR ps1,p2,ps3,ps4,xb1,xb360,xb1 etc were all supply constrained at launch
Silent_Buddha
Legend
On the other hand, the Switch was FAR more supply constrained for far longer than the PS4. The Switch was extremely hard to get outside of Europe (at least from what people on this forum say it was much easier to get in Europe) for the first 6 months. The US started to get enough supply towards the end of the summer. Japan not until after.
You could just as well say that if Nintendo hadn't been so conservative about their first year production orders, the gap between PS4 and Switch would be much much larger WW for first year sales.
However, you are correct that the PS4 was somewhat supply constrained it's first Holiday season, so maybe it would have been able to match Switch's performance to some degree if they're production had ramped enough enough for the Holiday season.
2nd year sales will certainly be far more interesting as they'll be in similar positions without launch supply issues.
Regards,
SB
DuckThor Evil
Legend
It would be more fair, because at 15 months, both consoles will have included in their numbers the launch and one non-launch holiday. I do agree that the full second year sales will be a better metric, but also available later.
My point was just about the consoles having different amount of peak months in this comparison, which distorts the graphs regardless of their actual sales potential. The graph up there has Switch fly past the PS4 during a Switch Nov-Dec period vs slow months for PS4. at 15 months PS4 will have it's first non launch holiday figures factored in as well and Switch will have more months with less major shortages.
If the peaks are ignored, the gradients show PS4 having the stronger growth. But of course those peaks could have resulted in momentum. so yeah, quite an obscure graph that doesn't forecast the future at all well!
Yes indeed. Where I live Switch has never being sold out one day since the first day of launch. Very different than either Wii or PS4 that were either very hard or impossible to find during the first months.
This is why for me the Switch is not in the same league than either Wii or PS4. Very soon the sales are going to decrease, similar to Wii. It certainly won't get its best sales the fourth year like PS4 and it certainly won't reach 100 millions console sold like Wii or most probably PS4.
Probably not, but PS4 also had a couple things going for it in year 4. You could buy one for $200, half the price the system launched at, and it also saw a boost thanks to the premium SKU with the Pro model. If Switch were to be available at $149 and have a newer premium model released, its possible that Switch could have a very strong year 4. I still look at the 3DS, and the most popular models by far have been the more expensive models. This tells me that once the product is $199, there isn't a big advantage in further reducing the price. Switch is likely to see support from two Pokémon games in its lifetime, and we have seen that IP moves hardware. Seeing as how 3DS is on its way to 80 million units, I am not so sure Switch cant make it to 100 million. Switch will have greater first party support than the 3DS enjoyed and an expanded third party lineup as well. $199 is the mass market price, and that is where they need to be when a new Pokémon game releases in order to maximize hardware sales.
Same here in NZ, you could just walk into a store and grab one. I even saw the Switch discounted a month after launch. Same with the Wii here, when the rest of the world was complaining about not being able to buy them, they were just sitting on shelves here unwanted
Silent_Buddha
Legend
At which point things will be tilted unfairly in PS4's favor as it'll have 2 holiday seasons under its belt compared to only 1 for switch. Things should be normalized for the most part after then 2nd year, so the 24 month numbers will be the most interesting. Ignore graphs for the moment as they are relatively irrelevant since they aren't month aligned.
If you wish to take out launch supply issues then just looking at the 2nd year in isolation (total year not month to month) would give more insight into how each are doing.
Regards,
SB
DuckThor Evil
Legend
No because launch and holidays don't really accumulate on top of each other, it just ends up as being one high sales time period. The first holiday season for PS4 was as far as I can remember its worst so far, even though it was also during a launch. However launching in March will boost that time period massively and won't take away sales from the next holiday season, thus the situation is fairly comparable or at least far more so than the reported/linked 10 months point in time. I'm not trying to sell it as some type of miracle data point.
If looking at long term, it all gets a bit silly - just look at total numbers sold / time to see who's selling better. 
DuckThor Evil
Legend
If looking at long term, it all gets a bit silly - just look at total numbers sold / time to see who's selling better.
these consoles can sell something like 7-9 million units during a calendar Q4. It's such a big number that unit sold/ time will look different just before and just after a holiday season for quite a few years down the line.
You can't exclude holiday seasons though, or factor them in in any sane way. One console may end up selling more strongly every holiday than another. There's no meaningful, aligned metric AFAICS, unless they launch on the same day. We can only sensibly use total sales, and total sales over time, and anything else is picking and choosing numbers to compare arbitrary points in the life-cycle. It can thus be argued Switch is selling better and selling worse than PS4 depending on which bits one chooses to include and exclude, with neither argument based on this data giving any idea how Switch lifetime sales will compare to PS4's.
PS4 was never supply limited here in the US, and it has obviously done very well. Seeing as how Switch is performing about the same as the 3DS did in its first year, I don't know that the limited supply early means much over the long haul, and just indicates that it outperformed Nintendo's early projections. Supply is no longer an issue, even in Japan things have normalized. Media Create and NPD charts will be more telling on just how much sustainable momentum Switch has. It wont take much longer to get an idea if Switch is going to start falling behind PS4's pace or not.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
It was supply constrained for it's first 2 months (Nov. and to a lesser extent Dec.) in the US. But the supply constraint wasn't nearly as bad as the Switch. It was still relatively easy to get one in Nov. and Dec. at launch even if it went out of stock from time to time.
In the EU, however, the supply issues were apparently worse than in the US in the first couple months.
Regards,
SB
According to Panic Button they are seeing a surge of Nintendo Switch port requests from third parties.
https://wccftech.com/nintendo-switch-ports-panic-button/
https://wccftech.com/nintendo-switch-ports-panic-button/
