The Halo effect in play (Nvidia's hyper-putrid 1650 will outsell AMD's vast better and vastly better value 570 for the same reason).
Also *projection* (wishful thinking)- gamers looking at the promotional vids and wanting the game via a projection of what they wish the game wiil be vs the very mdeiocre reviews telling what the game actually is.
The reason some really bad sequels to beloved movies get a very good BO, even when the critics trash the film.
However, in the entertainment biz, the Halo effect and 'projection' are notoriously unreliable. Sony is lucky this time. A few more stinkers in their AAA 'exclusive' family and things will start to look very different. Fanboys will enthusiastically give support to their team over one or two unexpected losses, but beyond that...
You're making no sense here....The Halo effect can't be used, whatever that means, even Halo does not sell so hot anymore (it depends more on imaginary 90% digital sales to make itself as relevant as it used to be)........The Nvidia effect, is surely something, but it is not relevant here because people are lemmings and choose to remain uninformed, so they follow nvidia Implicitly, buying a lesser product for much more money.......
Days gone is entirely different.......People who loved Days gone from day 1, bought days gone on Day 1, they knew what the game about and knew if it jived with them..........Others warmed up to it........What is clear is that Days Gone was up against it from the get-go, from the very first day that title was revealed, there was a concerted effort against it by a very vocal pitchfork crowd "Days Gone is bad, Days Gone is generic", so naturally, when reviews came, they were happy about the non 90+ reviews and meta and continued their "told ya" ribbings........At 72%, people are trying to pretend it's the worst game reviewed this gen and it plays like Superman 64.....Some came here to apply the pressure even more came here to say "Bend is done now"........But guess what, now that people bought Days Gone in droves and loved it, the detractors are upset........Why are you having fun with this shitty game I have not played and never cared for in the first place??? Why are people buying this, it's not even like it's on gamepass.....People are paying $60 for this?
And this is it........The thing is, people bought Days Gone regardless of some very terrible reviews from IGN and Gamespot.....People saw right through these reviews and did not care.....People are already aware, that just like the media swoons over Nvidia and certain devs or publishers, reviewers are not as genuine on playing games and giving fair assessments anymore.......Why was the controls of RDR2 never spoken about, I consider that a bigger sin than any technical issue you may come across in DG, the same for Witcher 3 which saw many patches to improve controls, that is probably the most important aspect of playing interactive media I feel....Generally I don't feel any Sony game had awful controls this gen or that I can remember.......
So no, there's no Halo Effect or Nvidia effect here....The media houses are not swooning over DG....The media houses gave Days Gone the finger, but gamers said, "hold on, wait a minute", many of the things you said about DG is not true, I'm having a splendid experience, moreso than games which you score even higher.........So there's a tale to be said here, but it's not because of people are just blindly jumping over a cliff because it's a "Sony exclusive".......