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[IAmRandom31]

People are also not mentioning the fact that there were tons of people who went home after standing in line empty handed. Heck local talk shows around here joked about that. Sports radio guys were saying they waited in line for 4 hours and left empty handed at a best buy.

Sony could likely sold 1.25-1.5m consoles off pure launch demand alone. These next shipments will likely sell out just as quickly.

 

[vikingvessel]

Pretty sure they identify with it in a joking way. Kind of like "reappropriating" it.

I have never considered the endless if you really cared about graphics, you would get a pc canvassing much of a punchline when someone is specifically looking to purchase a console. Has the constant derailment been making you laugh?

 

[maquiladora]

There have been a lot of posts like this, so I'm quoting you two as representative rather than to single you two out.

I've read most (but not all) pages of the thread, and a few articles on the 1m sales number, but most seem to be missing what I think is the real story. It's pretty weak reasoning to dismiss the launch sales with arguments as Ars presented: "if the other systems had as many units on sale, they'd have sold as many", or something like that. The real story was the supply, not the demand.

The question to ask is, why didn't any previous console launch have enough units on sale, if that demand was there? You gotta both drive up demand and have units to sell. Why is it that only Sony was able to crank out this many for their launch?

Console launches are massive, years in the making logistical challenges. I'd love some journalist to ask the question, "Why was Sony able to have over one million PS4's available for sale in North American day 1, when no other system could pull it off, despite supposedly having the demand?" And then follow that thought through. What about the PS4's design enabled it to be manufactured more easily than prior consoles? How did Sony overcome supply line bottlenecks? What are the logistical challenges in getting that many units into the channel so fast? What were the specific lessons Sony learned from the launch of prior Playstations that enabled them to achieve this result? (We can surmise some of the answers on our own, of course.)

How did Sony pull this off when no one else ever has, if prior launches had enough demand? That's the real story here and Ars missed it entirely. The author would do readers a greater service to dig into that question and do a little journalism rather than just dismiss the impressive launch numbers with "well the other guys had lots of demand too" stories. But that's harder, of course.

10/10

 

[antibolo]

He got promoted?

Wow, thanks to Amir0x for quoting this, I missed it the first time around as well. Now THAT's a story that should have been the focal point of this article. I'm actually really curious to understand this myself.

Expecting Kyle Orland to ever engage in actual journalism is asking a lot.

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

Based on 2:1 interest in PS4, I'd guess Xbox has about 500k preorders in NA.

Which would put it around the original Xbox numbers. The European numbers are what will actually be closely watched. Giving out free games to get people not to cancel is always a bad sign.