How about this...
Sony did very well for its launch day. What is so hard in saying that. Why downplay the success of something by comparing it to other consoles in a negative light? No one is saying the PS4 is winning, and the XBox is dead. That wasn't even a discussion, but bringing this up as if this is the overall picture for the future is ridiculous. Where was articles like this when the 360 was deemed the best despite the PS3 not even released yet or even priced? Or what about the Wii? Like it's unnecessary and uncalled for. Sony finally... Like FINALLY has everything right for once. Just give it to them. It doesn't have to be praise, you can compare it to other launches as well but just hand it to them. They came from the grave and the shameful ps3 launch to now making history in the NA.. A market they would have never if we were to guess this back in 08. Just give it to them. It's not that hard... It really isn't.
lol. "Great job, Sony. You nailed it!" Compelling article, right? In my eyes, the number in and of itself warrants further research, precisely because it's very impressive. And yes, there's more than enough discussion and excitement surrounding the number to warrant such an article, as well. The existence or non-existence of a "PS4 is winning, X1 is dead" narrative is almost irrelevant, because it's incredibly easy to justify an article that places launch day sales numbers into the context of past sales trends. Seriously, you and many others here seem very, very oversensitive to additional context and an absence of jubilance, as if anything that doesn't simply reinforce how great this or that news is for Sony is by default "downplaying," and therefore offensive.
I don't get it. The article acknowledges at least a few times that Sony broke records here, that the PS4 has officially eclipsed other consoles in terms of launch day sales. It's absolutely worth looking at this data point with a critical eye, though, even if it seems many people apparently only care for it as fodder for a Sony feel good story/smiling Kaz GIFs/whatever.
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?
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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.
I completely agree with you. There was certainly nothing ambitious about this particular article, and yes, I'd love to see a break down of what, exactly, was different this time. Actually, aside from the lack of ambition, there was nothing particularly insightful about this article, either: the observation made here was of the low hanging fruit variety, and the headline itself ("Don't read too much...") speaks to an absence of imagination, because there is
definitely a real story there, and you touched upon it.
The thing is, this article pretty obviously had a limited scope from the outset (giving a bit of context to the PS4 launch day numbers), and seeing as
most articles fall under the "limited scope" category, I can hardly summon indignation every time one pops up.
