D.Lo
Member
This is absolutely true.Wii U was an unappealing product the market rejected which followed a hyped console that failed to deliver in the last few years of its life, from what I understand. I get the feeling some want to blame the decline solely on a general decline in console gaming without factoring in Nintendo's failure.
However, the Wii WAS part of the market. A full, bona-fide entry in the market. Therefore, if a segment of consumers who were previously part of the market disappeared simply because Nintendo went off the rails, well it doesn't matter why, it's a 40% market contraction. No spinning of 'b b but the other half of the market that didn't disappear is doing slightly better launch aligned' changes that.
That's true, but it's very difficult to make comparisons otherwise. PS360 also had a very prolonged generation due to what was essentially a MS/Sony new-console-launch ceasefire in an attempt to make up for some of their horrific early gen losses, and this buffed their totals in a way no previous gen console had a chance to. Switch is now out competing directly against consoles that its predecessor also did, muddying comparisons. IMO Late PS2 buyers are still part of that console's generation, they are just the tail of it. The same went for PS1 which also sold 35% of its total after the PS2 was out.Well there are quite a few caveats to that, most notably due to the definition of generational sales being a mutable concept.
Although Sony spluttered horribly out the gate with PS3, over the same period they shipped a very substantial number of PS2's globally (40m + as they only reached 100m shipped in November 2005).
Its always amazed me how people conflate PS2's lifetime sales total with the figures actually achieved during the nominal 6th gen of hardware.