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PS5 sales hit 4 million in Japan; unit sales are tracking 20% above the PS4
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
Mr.Phoenix
Member
So PlayStation isn't dead in japan after all.
TheTony316
Member
It has a shot at outselling the PS3.
John Wick
Member
But but I'm sure there used to be a guy on here who gave us a report telling us how badly the PS5 was doing????
John Wick
Member
They are being sold to the Chinese and Koreans man get with the program/agenda20% above PS4? Certain people on the board who were trying to convince us PS5 was dead in Japan, right now like...
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Yall keep saying people care about 60 fps games. Maybe the PS5 having more 60fps games is something people like.
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mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
It's hard to see this happening though. The PS3 just gained so much power late its life.
leo-j
Member
Ps5 slim and the attempt at the handheld might help though
Kilau
Gold Member
They are actually buying them as houses.
Captain Toad
Banned
Yet everyone says it's dead there. Why?
Syphon Filter
Member
I doubt it will outsell the PS3.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Hard not to compare these results to the old guard at PlayStation. The PS5, on paper, is less attractive than the PS4 for the Japanese audience. It's selling more because current PlayStation leadership knows WTF it's doing. Jim Ryan is awesome.
Woopah
Member
Hardware is significantly up vs. prior systems while software is significantly down, so its a very very weird situation.
But yes this year in paritcular hardware is doing very well. Its not an exact measure, but if we look at week 30 during the third full year of other Sony systems:
PS5 - 1,669,177
PS4 - 760,380
PS3 - 628,859
PSP - 1,221,633
PSV- 761.105
Solidus_T
Member
Agreed but Sony needs to do something about Japan Studio games still running like they are on a base PS4.
ulantan
Member
I eat it all before it gets there
Captain Toad
Banned
Do the charts track digital? It seems PS5 and Xbox have a much higher digital rate than Switch.
Woopah
Member
They don't track digital, but the software is highly likely to lower than PS4 even with digital.
So it's pretty interesting to follow.
Captain Toad
Banned
If thats true, we're done here. Digital has been growing exponentially on the home consoles. Without that, It's pointless to compare.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Sony PlayStation quarterly game unit sales digital share 2023 | Statista
In the third fiscal quarter of 2023, approximately 66 percent of Sony Corporation's PlayStation gaming sales were generated via digital downloads.
www.statista.com
Woopah
Member
We can make some reasonable assumptions.
For context, if we look at their respective first couple of years on the market, PS5 would need an 88% digital ratio for its total sales to match PS4's retail only sales.
And that is not a likely digital ratio.
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vivftp
Member
Sony PlayStation quarterly game unit sales digital share 2023 | Statista
In the third fiscal quarter of 2023, approximately 66 percent of Sony Corporation's PlayStation gaming sales were generated via digital downloads.
Yup, high digital ratio, plus the vast majority of SIE published games since the PS5 came out are on Plus. And of course there's BC to play games and F2P games are more popular than ever.
Worth also remembering a chunk of PS5 gamers are digital only as their console doesn't support physical. This ratio will only go up as the new revision releases and all PS5s going forward are digital by default
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
They're at 70% already for the last quarter. Love it or hate it, they'll be in the 80s in no time. Especially when the revision comes as mentioned the post above this one.
Woopah
Member
Exactly. If they are at 70% worldwide then there's no way they are at 88% in Japan, especially when high digital ratios tend to be for online multiplayer titles.
FFXVI for example had a less than 50% digital ratio in Europe so it was probably the same for Japan.
ReBurn
Gold Member
Since pretty much all PS4 games are also PS5 games so people who skipped last gen are starting with the combined library of hundreds of games. That's a great value proposition for new buyers.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Japan is poised for a digital transformation. More so than most countries at the moment.
I believe their internet is something like 83% penetration for the total population and they are the world leaders in digital wallet adoption. Which explains Sony's heavy push in that area.
TheThreadsThatBindUs
Member
Choo choo, motherfuckers! Nobody stops this train.
Sony needs to continue aggressively pursuing Japanese and Asian-developed exclusive games.
Woopah
Member
Maybe it will get there one day but we aren't seeing it yet. The used games market in Japan is still very strong (nearly 8 million used games sold there last year) which keeps things physical.
Captain Toad
Banned
So, you don't know. Gotcha.
Woopah
Member
Yes. We "don't know" in the same way that we "don't know" that the top 10 best selling games in the US in June weren't Nintendo games.
StealthGoblin
Banned
I don’t think it’s struggling in that regard either. Digital is high on PS5
Rac3r
Member
It's probably tracking very close to the PS3 and PS4. Remember that thousands of units were being scalped to Japan during the covid shortages. Based on the dismal software sales, I wouldn't be surprised if active users are actually closer to 3 million, compared to the 4 million units sold. Positive news overall though, and plenty of growth left for PlayStation.
Captain Toad
Banned
No one us arguing that. But, Switch doesn't have the 70-80% digital attach rate PS5 and Xbox do.
Woopah
Member
Nintendo hasn't shared a global digital split.
So we "don't know" that Switch doesn't have a 70% split just like we "don't know" that PS5 software is lower than PS4 software in Japan.
What I'm saying is that we don't need digital sales to draw reasonable conclusions.
Darkness_Arises
Member
The reasonable conclusion being one of the following two:
1. Some Japanese are scalping PS5 en-masse on the worldwide market. This conspiracy is very popular among so-called Nintendo fans a.k.a. people who went from being Sega fans to MS fans to Nintendo fans as they are finally tired of losing a.k.a. Sony haters.
2. People in Japan are hoarding PS5 for no reason whatsoever.
Occam's razor would suggest neither of these are plausible or even probable, the market in Japan atleast for PS5 software has shifted massively to digital purchases, that is the simplest explanation.
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Woopah
Member
It's very very unlikely that PS' digital ratio in Japan went from 0% on PS4 to 88% on PS5.
If the scalping theory was true, it would mean that hardware sales in Japan were higher than they looked but that the software sales for those consoles weren't as low as they looked.
Whereas if its not true, it means the hardware sales in Japan are as high as they look and the software sales are as low as they look.
I would say the 2nd one now is the most likely. And what we are seeing is a combination of a rise in digital, but also the PS audience in Japan moving away from buying full games.