Zombie James
Banned
Lock if old, please.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/11/dont-read-too-much-into-the-ps4s-million-day-one-sales/
UPDATE:
What Ars thinks of their audience.
Still, we recommend a bit of caution before looking at those numbers and assuming that the PlayStation 4 will be a long-term, market-leading hit. A quick look at the history of console launch sales numbers shows little correlation between early sales numbers and longer-term success.
For instance, in 2000, the PlayStation 2 sold about 500,000 units in its first 24 hours on its way to capturing a huge majority of the console market in the coming years. In 2001, Nintendo's GameCube and Microsoft's Xbox sold 500,000 and 550,000 units, respectively, in their first week on store shelves, but neither console maker was able to ride launch sales to PS2-level post-launch success.
The Xbox 360 sold through a healthy 326,000 units in the US in the two weeks following its launch, according to NPD. Sega's Dreamcast, on the other hand, sold a larger 372,000 units in just four days of US sales, Sega said (in what was arguably a smaller market for video games at the time). Yet the Xbox 360 went on to be one of the most dominant consoles of its generation, while the Dreamcast languished on shelves and ceased production just over a year after launch.
The Wii U provides another good cautionary tale here. The system sold a solid 400,000 units in the US in its first week on store shelves last year, a figure that rose to 890,000 by the end of 2012, with Nintendo talking up retail shortages and sellouts at many retailers. When 2012 transitioned to 2013, though, the Wii U fell into what is increasingly looking like a death spiral of poor sales, poor support, and poor impact on the market.
If Sony had produced two million PS4 units in time for Friday's launch, it would have still likely sold all of them to eager consumers; instead, that extra million will likely sell through over the next few weeks instead. Conversely, if production problems meant that Sony could only get its first million systems out to stores over a matter of weeks rather than in time for launch day, the raw day-one demand for the system wouldn't be any different.
Similarly, if Nintendo had managed to get 2 million Wii units on store shelves for launch day, you can bet there still would have been zero units available on day two. In any case, as discussed above, the precise speed you sell your first few million consoles doesn't necessarily tell you how fast you'll sell the next ten million, or the tens of millions further that are necessary to be a successful console these days.
The same auctions and preorder data indicating a Sony sellout suggest that the Xbox One will see similar healthy sales when it hits North American stores this Friday. In fact, Microsoft seems confident enough in its production capacity to suggest that consumers will be able to buy a system without a pre-order on launch day.
But a strong first holiday season for both consoles has never really been in question. What's still very much up in the air is which system will have a strong April 2014, a strong second holiday season, or a strong fourth year on the market, for example. Those are things you just can't predict based on a single day of sales, no matter how record-breaking.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/11/dont-read-too-much-into-the-ps4s-million-day-one-sales/
UPDATE:
What Ars thinks of their audience.