Eh... there are only like 8 instances of a console from the last three gens (current included) selling 371K or more in March.
There are only like 4 instances of a console selling 440K or more, 3 by the Wii and 1 by the PS2. Although I'm missing the breakdown or earlier PS2 data.
I'm not sure where those levels of expectation come from...
I know it's a big number to expect, but it was a big expectation made more reasonable by circumstances. I'll explain this again, hopefully more clearly.
February is a much better month, sales-wise, than January, especially in recent times, especially when January is a 4-weeks-month...but PS4 sold around the same as January. This due to severe, undeniable massive shortages, which is true and well documented (Amazon.com had the console for...not so much, just for an example).
January had 271,000 units sold, with shortages, but not as severe as in February, where they sold as much as in January (4-weeks month v.s. 4-weeks month). So, there was "thrist" still to satisfy, apparently a good amount of demand not fulfilled. "Suppressed" demand, as I call it (probably there's a better term for it, but whatever): people that wanted to buy the good (in this case, the console), but didn't have the possibility because it wasn't available broadly enough, so they patiently awaits for it to be back on stock. Given the sales trajectory, and how it was influenced by shortages in both months, but severly in February, with no change from January to February, while hardware overall saw a 40-50% increase from January Thus, the circumstances made a possibility to expect very big sales for March, which is a month with better average sales than January but worse than February historically, but PS4 has had clear problems in satisfying the demand earlier in the year, with February being the biggest representation of this. Average weekly sales didn't increase that much
PS4 in February - 269,000. Average: around 67,500 units/week
PS4 in March - 371,000. Average: around 74,000 units/week
Not even 10,000 units per week. So, this means that there's a concrete possibility the "suppressed demand" wasn't as big as we all thought: consoles were widely available in March, much more than in February, but sales didn't see a huge average weekly sales increase reflecting the presence of a big amount of people waiting since January and, above all, February. Thus, PS4 could be already in the 200,000/220,000 zone in April, which doesn't mean doing bad, as I already stated. At all. It would mean doing certainly well, but not very well, or as big as the main 8th generation console (for now) could have done in the past.