How The PSP Didn't Really Break A Sales Record

from the just-delay-your-launch dept

Wed, Sep 7th 2005 1:12pm — Mike Masnick

The BBC is reporting that, after plenty of delays and grey market PSPs sneaking in, Sony is happily claiming that it's set a record for first week sales of a gaming console in the UK with the PSP launch there. It didn't take long for Nate Elliot to rip apart that claim by noting that thanks to all of the delays Sony had in releasing the UK PSP, they get to count nearly a year's worth of "pre-orders" in that "initial week" total. In other words, for the next company that wants to break this record, just keep pushing back your launch date and hyping up the device until you get enough pre-orders and then actually release it.

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VGJunkie, 8 Sep 2005 @ 7:26am

So pre-orders don't count?
If anything, wouldn't taking pre-orders and then stalling the release hurt the PSP sales in the long run? This gives the person more time to decide whether or not they actually want the product. Some people would cancel the pre-order because of the continuous delays.

Either way, a Pre-order = a sale. I don't think the stalling/hyping tactic really would have mattered, considering so many grey market ones got in.
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- Mike (profile), 8 Sep 2005 @ 9:59am
  
  Re: So pre-orders don't count?
  Pre-order does equal a sale, but they had nearly a year to build them up. That means it's a little misleading to claim all those sales "in the first week." I'm not saying the sales aren't impressive, but they're not really from the first week.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]