7th Gen vs 8th Gen - Aligned Sales Comparison - February 2015 Update

VGcharts:"Welcome to a series of monthly articles. This series will be comparing combined aligned sales of the 7th generation platforms with the 8th generation platforms. The two charts compare the home consoles, as well as handhelds."

[Foehammer]

Interesting to see last gen selling better than current gen.

X1 and PS4 are ahead of 360 and PS3, but the WiiU hasn't been able to match the blistering pace of the Wii.

[MasterCornholio]

But those PS4 numbers though!!!

Amazing that Sony has the ability to supply so many regions though. It shows that they really care about their consumers on a global basis.

[YodaCracker]

Even the PS4 hasn't been able to keep up with the Wii.

PS4 2015 vs. Wii 2008:

Week One - PS4: 409,626 / Wii: 386,299
Week Two - PS4: 199,554 / Wii: 206,753
Week Three - PS4: 161,507 / Wii: 268,265
Week Four - PS4: 148,600 / Wii: 315,755
Week Five - PS4: 161,949 / Wii: 297,369
Week Six - PS4: 172,051 / Wii: 366,579
Week Seven - PS4: 185,361 / Wii: 226,011
Week Eight - PS4: 230,121 / Wii: 256,997
Week Nine - PS4: 231,869 / Wii: 364,846

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz...

[MasterCornholio]

Yeah but that was to be expected since the Wii U launched at a much lower price point than the PS4. Not to mention the casuals were on board with the system.

[NeverHeavyMan]

True, but I'd say a little perspective is needed. First of all, that's 9 weeks of one year. The Wii proved to be a stroke of luck, while the PS4 is doing what the PS2 did, and then some, in essence, repeating and making history for PlayStation (this will be the third time a machine from that brand will utterly dominate the charts).

From that angle, the PS4 is just as impressive, if you ask me.

[Concertoine]

@MasterCornholio

And they aren't on board the PS4? I dont get this assertion that the casuals came and went with the wii. They've been here since the PS2.

5th gen totals: approx 151 million across N64, Saturn, PS1

6th gen totals: approx 212 million across DC, PS2, GC, Xbox
Increase of 61 million

7th gen totals: approx 260 million
Increase of 48 million

Considering that all three of those consoles in the 7th gen have been on shelves for almost ten years, and that only the PS2 sold beyond like 5 years in the 6th gen, its safe to say the casuals were always there. The Wii didnt discover some mythical untapped market, at least not a massive one. It was just cheap and had the most appeal at the time. Like the PS2 and PS1 did in their times.

[mikeslemonade]

Points:

1. PS4 has more legs the Wii1. It has many more price drops and more AAA system sellers coming out. Wii1 if you did not notice the sales drop real fast at year 4 because nothing new was coming out.

2. The console market isn't getting smaller. Last gen was an anomaly because Wii1 got lucky by getting an untapped market. Generation 8 will be bigger than generation 6.

Concertoine, to say the casual market was always their is being naive. I can make an argument that the "PS2 casuals" was from the PS1 when it was the fist console to sell 100mil. Point is a industry can grow infinitely. There will always be an untapped market. And for this case the Wii1 reached an untapped market! There has been documentation that many people who have never owned a console bought a wii for WiiSports.

Also Wii1 sold more in the front end. So it did it in that 4 year time-frame. So even if generation 6 sold longer it was pretty much maxed out at that time since Gamecube, Xbox, and Dreamcast were dead by then.

Side note: It's the handhelds that are losing ground. PS Vita and 3DS are even coming close to the DS and PSP. Stop supporting smartphone and tablets you idiotic gamers!!!

[Jaqen_Hghar]

We all know PS4 will sell more in the end. Only 1 Playstation home console has sold less than 100m and it took a $600 price tag and a year's head start for their main competitor to do it as well as a slew of other factors. Playstation consoles have ridiculous legs and Wii fell off a cliff after a couple years of craziness.

[Mankey]

All this shows that people who only came on to play the likes of Wii Sports have moved onto mobile and facebook games.

The number of "gamers" is growing.

[Ravenor]

And can we get software sales in that same time frame? I guarantee you that the PS4 has sold considerably more software than the Wii did. Ignoring outliers like Mario Kart Wii, everything on the Wii sold incredibly poorly.

[Jaqen_Hghar]

What about Wii sports? It's the highest selling title ever! Oh wait...

[Jaqen_Hghar]

PS4 holding up the line but WiiU has just left too many sales on the shelf sadly (it really does deserve more)

With X1 back to it's non-holiday (read fire sale) baseline expect this graph to plummet. I wouldn't be surprised if X1 falls behind 360 by this next holiday it really doesn't perform as well Jan-October.

[benji101]

All the home consoles are going to have short lives. PS4 and xbox 1 are badly designed systems.