Support NeoGAF

[Unknown?]

PS4 ended up selling like shit in Japan as well.

10M is shit? That's still bigger than UK.

I remember the old days Playstation brand was huge in Japan, destroying record every weeks.

That was LONG before the PS4. That was two decades ago.

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

I know they're both sold out, but now I'm scared for Playstation's future in Japan.
Wouldn't be surprised if they announce in the future a PS5P(portable)

Unfortunately, I think console gaming is done in Japan. That’s probably why Sony semi-bailed out from there and is sadly focusing on the West primarily.

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

10 mi

10M is shit? That's still bigger than UK.

I feel 10 million isn’t really too impressive out of near 115 million units worldwide.

 

[SkylineRKR]

10M is shit? That's still bigger than UK.


That was LONG before the PS4. That was two decades ago.

Japan is bigger than UK as well.

They used to sell more than twice as much. Which accounted for a decent amount of Playstations sold worldwide, nearly 25% of PS1's was sold there. 15% of PS2's (which sold 150m ww). PS3 like 10% and PS4 is like 8%? Its a downward trend. And there isn't even much competition in the home console space. MS does jack shit there and Nintendo kinda went fully handheld.

 

[phil_t98]

wasn't xbox getting laughed at for only selling 155k in the uk? I would of expected higher for Japan for PS5 , still great numbers do not get me wrong

 

[SkylineRKR]

Unfortunately, I think console gaming is done in Japan. That’s probably why Sony semi-bailed out from there and is sadly focusing on the West primarily.

It was telling that the PS4 itself came out quite a bit later in Japan. PS1 and PS2 came out much earlier there. Priorities have changed. Perhaps its the type of games being offered on consoles today, that most of the PS2 era and older games go to handheld space now. But ever since HD gaming its been in decline.

 

[DavidGzz]

Is it the size or is that a myth? Wait....not what I meant.

Those attach rates are awful. What the fuck are they playing over there?

Lmao, I guess BC was a bad move in Japan, everyone is playing their back log or something...

 

[Slothbeing1209]

Yeah people (usually from US) just dont understand how rest of the world buys xbox, or rather not to buy

Here at Finland it took less than 1-5 mins to sell out PS5, xsex took about 2 weeks, and series S is still available at least in 29 cities(one retailer chain) with is majority of our "big" towns/cities. Today it looks like they finally sold out online, but those retailers still have them.

Big difference sell out in minutes vs weeks.

I think that we are almost as Playstation land as japan, but switch is maybe 10% of japans popularity

Sound just like my country (vietnam). Except in my country people don't care about Xbox at all lol.

 

[belmarduk]

Hopefully Xbox gets some JRPGs this generation. Yes, they didn't win over the Japanese market with the 360 but some of those games were really good!

 

[leo-j]

Tbh I would be surprised if ps5 barely outdid ps3 numbers in NA.
Sony claims to have the most stock ever, you cannot even pre order the console or order on back order in the US. And stock has not been in since last friday at all retailers. Horrible launch if this keeps up.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Hopefully Xbox gets some JRPGs this generation. Yes, they didn't win over the Japanese market with the 360 but some of those games were really good!

I bought Infinite Undiscovery last week, lol. Only Tri Ace game I never tried.

There were some gems, and some were shit. I hated Sonata and SO4. I liked Blue Dragon to some extent. I liked LO, Vesperia and Remnant (but play the remaster or PC). Can't say they didn't try during the first 2 years.

 

[SoraNoKuni]

A lot of xboxes for Japan, well I predict they will eventually start selling 5 per month as usual but strong launch.
Nice.

 

[Unknown?]

Japan is bigger than UK as well.

They used to sell more than twice as much. Which accounted for a decent amount of Playstations sold worldwide, nearly 25% of PS1's was sold there. 15% of PS2's (which sold 150m ww). PS3 like 10% and PS4 is like 8%? Its a downward trend. And there isn't even much competition in the home console space. MS does jack shit there and Nintendo kinda went fully handheld.

Oh I fully understand it's bad compared to the past. Unfortunately Japan is mobile oriented and household units will never do well again.

 

[Bruno_Arrais85]

That's terrible for both. Wonder if COVID + supply could be blamed, at least for PS5, but I'm not very confident it would sell much more than that.

If it's sold out, you can't sell it more.

 

[mckmas8808]

PS4 ended up selling like shit in Japan as well.

No it didn't.

 

[Bruno_Arrais85]

wasn't xbox getting laughed at for only selling 155k in the uk? I would of expected higher for Japan for PS5 , still great numbers do not get me wrong

Sold out dude...

 

[Ten_Fold]

Not bad, both sold out in Japan. Gotta take in account, everything is mainly online order only, also not many systems available. An let’s face it, Japan only play handhelds, systems or pretty much not big over there anymore.

 

[THE DUCK]

Not sure why some people are "happy" it readily outsold the xbox, only play one console? Want no competition?

That said 21k for microsoft, doesn't that match thier total sales for xbox one, lol?

 

[Neko Mimi Mode]

That said 21k for microsoft, doesn't that match thier total sales for xbox one, lol?

Xbox One sold 24k in the same time frame, but didn't sell out. This sold out and retailers had to implement a lottery system.

Definitely an increase in interest for Xbox, even if moderate.

 

[yurinka]

First weekend sales in Japan:
Wii: 371,9K
Switch: 330.6K
PS4: 322.1K
WiiU: 308.6K
PS5: 118K (sold out, supply constrained)
PS3: 88.4K
360: 60K
XBO: 23.5K
XSX+XSS: 21K (sold out, supply constrained)

To be expected. Even if global launch shipment for Xbox and PS5 will be their biggest one ever, they now are releasing them in more countries, so several countries will get less units at launch. Specially the smaller ones for them, like Japan.

It's fair to assume they didn't have enough units to properly match the worldwide demand, and they prefered to send more units to their main marlets: USA for Xbox and Europe (specially the top ones: Germany, UK, France and Spain) for Sony.

I thought production was 10 or 15 million? Was that for the quarter?

Sony denied this Bloomberg info, they were fake news. Sony only mentioned they expect to sell this fiscal year more than PS4 did in the same launch period(~7M worldwide), never mentioned production numbers.

PS4 sold 1M in the first weekend in NA, and 4.2M worldwide during the first quarter.

But there is a difference between PS4 and PS5 launches: PS4 launched early in NA, while other regions like Europe, South America or Australia got it a coule of weeks later, and Japan had to wait until February, so they had time to produce more units for Japan.

This time, PS5 got released the first day on North America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea. And a week after in the rest of the world. Which probably means that even if the global shipment for day one will be higher than with PS4 (sold out everywhere just with preorders), probably each contry received less units for their launch weekend, because this early shipment has to be spread between more countries.

 

[ricardo_sousa11]

This is as expected.

However, I think launch numbers this time are a bit irrelevant considering the lack of stock worldwide.

Both are doing great sales wise IMO, but Japan is PlaystationLand so nothing out of the ordinary here.

 

[Endless Fluff]

Japan has been moving away from consoles since 2016/2017.

It’s become a PC&Switch&mobile market. The PC boosted by esports has pretty much curb stomped the PS4 in recent years.

This has already been reported by the annual Famitsu gaming white paper back in 2018 where they said the PC Gaming market grew by 50% to 15 million gamers with console sitting at 22 (most of them Switch).

The interest in home consoles is way down compared to 7 years ago, which is most likely why they only allocated 100k units.

PS5 will sell, but don’t expect 10 million over its life like PS4.

 

[fallingdove]

It's less than Xbox One sold at launch, and we all know how that console ended up doing in Japan.

Where are all of the Xbox fanboys that said the Xbox “selling out in Japan” was a sign that the Japanese love the Xbox now.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

The PC boosted by esports has pretty much curb stomped the PS4 in recent years.

The endgame is PC and mobile. Perfectly balanced.

 

[phil_t98]

Sold out dude...

same was said in another thread about xbox being sold out in uk but saying it was poor numbers

 

[Sakura]

You all are crazy. PS5 has been sold out since day 1. There just isn't enough stock. You had to play some lottery in the hopes of getting a chance to buy it at most stores. I went to the store yesterday and they said they wouldn't even get another shipment until early December. Yes, PS4 sold more in the first week, but that's because there was more stock available. PS4 released several months later in Japan if you remember.

 

[Azelover]

I gotta say, I'm not impressed.

I doubt that this is shocking to anyone. Japan is Nintendo country these days.

That a very defeatist way of looking at it. You wanna talk about Nintendo? Let's talk about them. Remember way back in 2002, when Nintendo's software sales were much lower. Had they stopped and said "it's Sony country now", and gave up. They'd never be where they are right now.

I'm sorry but, the fact that Japan is Nintendo country is no excuse..

 

[smbu2000]

Xbox One sold 24k in the same time frame, but didn't sell out. This sold out and retailers had to implement a lottery system.

Definitely an increase in interest for Xbox, even if moderate.

For the xbox one launch, Japan was relegated to a Tier 2 country by MS so it launched a year after the X1 western launch. There weren’t any supply issues shipping it a year later.

For the Series launch they launched it simultaneously with the West so supply issues are to be expected. (Just like in the rest of the world, except apparently Finland.)

 

[Fake]

Japan only is a pretty good number.

They can probably live in a PS5.

You made a good point.

 

[sublimit]

I'm sure it would have been a much bigger difference if they could actually find PS5s.

 

[MaxwellParrish]

Either Sony isn't leaning on Japan to prop it up anymore, or production was pretty damn weak. I don't doubt that they'd bias things to the West, but that's half what they sold with the PS4, and I'm pretty sure every PS5 has been sold there.

Well, PS4 launched in Japan 3 months + later than the rest of the world, s o, obviously, had much less problems with supply constrains...

 

[TaylorSwiftFan]

Huh?

Japan is utterly dominated by Nintendo. Sony are small fry.

Japan is handheld-land to be more precise.

 

[Bodomism]

Japan is second only behind the US in market size for traditional gaming hardware.

Nintendo Switch sold around 16M in Japan which is around or bigger than UK+France+Germany combined market share.

 

[Mobilemofo]

As a Wii U launch buyer, those Wii U numbers are shameful. 10 consoles would have been too much. Fucking trash heap of a console that was. I will never not be bitter about that fucking trainwreck (I was a shareholder at the time of the launch, fuck me what a bag of shit that was)

I like your style man..

 

[Mobilemofo]

Japan is handheld-land to be more precise.

And mostly arcade land. Still.

 

[Son_of_Zardoz]

Honestly surprised Xbox sold that many units. Seems like a decent launch for them over there, not like they were ever going to be in the same ballpark as PS.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

The ps5 doesn't even fit in the average Japanese home.

 

[MagnesG]

I'm more interested about seeing Gamepass's growth in Japan.

 

[nordique]

X button to confirm these sales
O to go back

 

[Exede]

The software sales are strangly low. Would worry me a bit as Sony, compare this to Mario Cart or BotW when the Switch released.

 

[RoadHazard]

Either Sony isn't leaning on Japan to prop it up anymore, or production was pretty damn weak. I don't doubt that they'd bias things to the West, but that's half what they sold with the PS4, and I'm pretty sure every PS5 has been sold there.

This is the first time I'm not getting a console on day 1 here in Sweden (not getting my pre-order until next year), so yeah, definitely feels like the supply is more limited this time.

 

[yurinka]

10 mi


I feel 10 million isn’t really too impressive out of near 115 million units worldwide.

This is because the Japanese console market has been moving to mobile gaming during years. And well, PS4 still has at least 2-3 years more to continue selling.

Console market instead increased in the rest of the world. For Sony, Europe is their first market and after that NA. Japan is only a top market for Nintendo and mobile gaming companies.

 

[93xfan]

Did both sell out?

 

[Trogdor1123]

Pretty solid Xbox numbers actually. Wonder what demand is like for either machine? The use of Japanese influencers seemed to indicate it is decently high ?

 

[Kerotan]

Obviously the ps5 will sell a lot more when stock arrives but I'd be curious what will happen to xbox. Will it be another disaster like the xb1?

 

[PSYGN]

It doesn't help that the machine is half the size of their living room. At least it's very quiet. The Japanese really appreciate small/quiet appliances because of how small everything is there.

 

[SupremeHoodie]

I’m surprised it’s only a 5 to 1. Japs don’t buy non Japan consoles.

Microsoft should give up on that region.

 

[Ash Sparrow]

Prediction. Xbox is going to tie playstation in japan this gen

 

[fran.fernandez]

Well that’s explain why I couldn’t get one or any of my coworkers here in japan... 118k units on release date? Was expecting at least 500k.... and we still on lottery to get one.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Definitely stock-restricted like the PS3.