PlayStation 3 in Japan – The Story So Far

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With Sony’s PlayStation 3 due to hit European shores on 23rd March, it is the perfect time to take a quick look over its performance in other territories – starting with the country where the PlayStation 2 caused riots when first released and has now surpassed the landmark sales total of twenty million units - Japan. Considering the PS3 has been out in Japan now since early November, you would expect that the successor to the most popular console in the Land of the Rising Sun to have wiped the floor with the competition. Sadly, for Sony, in reality this has not been the case as of yet. However, is all completely lost or can things be turned around? Let us take a look at its performance to date…

Unlike with Nintendo’s Wii, Sony was bringing the PS3 to Japan first due to it being seen as the most important market for the company at the time and a place where sure-fire success was inevitable. Therefore, six days prior to the US release, Japanese otaku began to busily queue up to get their hands on whatever was available, be it the 20GB or 60GB model of Sony’s behemoth. Worryingly, though, despite having already delayed from its initial Spring 2006 launch window due to problems with the manufacturing of sufficient hardware numbers, Sony was still struggling to supply a large quantity of units to retail at the time and early numbers from Japanese tracker Media Create that had filtered in put sales at only 81,639 units (with roughly 45,000 of those opting for the 60GB system). What was even more disheartening for the company was how low the game-to-system tie-in ratio was, with the figure shockingly coming in at under one game per console, meaning some people were merely buying the hardware without a game (most likely for re-sale on websites such as eBay where up to three times the price was seen around that time)! That week truly turned out to be quite a disastrous start for the next generation system. Sure, it nearly beat out the Xbox 360’s total sales for 2006 in one week, but considering Microsoft’s platform was dead in the water practically even before it was released, it could hardly be seen as an impressive feat.

As for overall game sales that week, out of the five launch titles, Ridge Racer 7 led the way with nearly 22,000 sales, landing at No.9 on the Media Create Top 50, with Gundam: Target in Sight just below at No.10 with slightly over 21,000 sales. Two powerful games scraping into a Top 10 dominated by the Nintendo DS, with games such as General Knowledge Training, Pokémon Diamond & Pearl, as well as the critically mauled Winning Eleven DS all placing easily higher – not what you would be expecting to see at the launch of the most powerful gaming platform ever released. The fate of the other launch games was even worse, though, with Sony’s own Resistance: Fall of Man at No.13 with around 13,500 units sold, Genji: Days of Blade at No.21 with 8,766 units and, finally, Sega’s Golf Club, which never even charted, garnering a paltry 1,410 copies sold. So where did that leave Sony? Certainly not at No.1 on the hardware front (the same week the DS Lite sold nearly 150,000 units thanks to a timely re-stock by Nintendo to counter the Sony release), and floundering badly in terms of software sales. The jury was out on the matter and a verdict was not far off from being delivered: Sony was in dire straits…and do not forget, there was something by the name of Wii waiting to hit on 2nd December as well.

And so a slow decline began the following week, with hardware down by 50% to around 42,000 units and games like Ridge Racer (now at No.16) and Gundam (No.19) struggling to even sell through 33% of their initial stock supplies that had already been sent to retail. But Sony was resilient, stating time and again that there were strong issues with the hardware supply and we would see an upturn soon enough. Yet the consumers were still not buying games. By week three, the PS3 was down to just over 32,000 units sold and the only games in the Top 30 were Ridge Racer and Gundam at No.29 and No.30, respectively, whilst at the same time Sega’s Love and Berry was débuting at No.1 on the DS with a healthy 421,000-plus sales due to the young girl demographic being tapped into. If it was becoming this bad for the PS3 in the face of strong DS competition, what was the likelihood of matters changing for the better once the Wii was released? Well, the answer was a simple one: impending disaster was on the cards.

After Sony launching early and accruing 187,836 sales of the PS3 so far, Nintendo hit back with the (also supply constrained) Wii on 2nd December and slammed a painfully large 350,358 units into punters’ grubby mitts in just one weekend, littering the chart with the likes of Wii Sports, Wii Play, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and WarioWare: Smooth Moves, plus a smattering of Third Party efforts. Though seeing stars after the pummelling, Sony was able to counter this as Nintendo did indeed hit problems with its own stock supplies the following week due to the first week blitz and, as a result, the PS3 boosted itself up to over 50,000 units, whilst the Wii fell hard to around 85,000. Suddenly it looked like Sony might not be completely out of the race. In fact, even Microsoft had been spurred on that week as Mistwalker’s Blue Dragon RPG from the father of Final Fantasy had launched and resuscitated the system from its dismal deathbed numbers to the shockingly good 35,000+ mark. But anyway, that is a different story…If only a PS3 game could get back into the Top 30, as its highest performer was still Bandai Namco’s racing favourite at a lowly No.38 position.

The situation improved again the following week as Motorstorm landed as a new entry at No.35, which although not very impressive in itself came along with a stock boost for the PS3 and a subsequent nudge of hardware numbers for that week, rising to nearly 71,000 sales. From Software’s Armoured Core 4 was next on the release list and it managed a No.26 position and sales of around 30,000 for its first week, helping to keep the PS3 moving upwards during Christmas week, rising up now to nearly 77,000 units. And so Sony’s hardware trundled along at that steady pace for the next few weeks, heading into the New Year and breaking the half million milestone and seemingly extremely happy to continue along this plateau until the next big game release. Unfortunately, though, the current climate in Japan’s gaming market does not allow for that and the PS3 was soon struck down to a rather pathetic 25,531, barely keeping its head above PlayStation 2 sales three weeks into 2007. And to rub even more salt in the wounds, retailers watching market trends were only pre-ordering 150,000 units of the next big hitter, Sega’s Virtua Fighter 5.

And retail got it spot on, as the PS3 continued to drop and by the end of January it had slid to less than 20,000, actually moving less than the PS2 that week and tracking lower than the GameCube had been at the same time in its lifespan. That was the week everyone began to shout out how the Wii was outselling the PS3 by 4:1…and although mid-February saw Virtua Fighter 5 gain the No.1 spot, it did so with a meagre sub-50,000 units sold, nearly being beaten by a game released back in December - Wii Sports. And to make matters even more depressing for Sony, the PS3 only climbed to nearly 23,500 units sold. Thus Sega’s highly popular fighting series saw its fifth home edition crippled early on, dropping to No.25 in its second week and then out of the Top 50 altogether the following week, when the highest new PS3 entry was Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom at No.49 (seeing the PS3 go back to the ~19,000 mark once more).

So sadly Sony is indeed struggling and not due to problems with stock anymore as anecdotal evidence from gamers actually living in Japan states that although the Wii is ridiculously hard to find, as is the DS Lite after all this time, the PlayStation 3 is in wide supply, but people are being put off by the high price-point and poor selection of games on offer right now. Yet the outlook is not entirely bleak for the system in Japan as last week’s chart saw Gundam Musou released to great furore, selling out completely in its first week and giving the PS3 its second No.1, with over 170,000 copies sold. More telling, however, is the positive boost the hardware received, more than doubling to 44,000 units. And considering the immensely popular Hot Shots Golf franchise has its new PS3 version due to hit in the near future, Sony may well be able to squeeze more life out of the system and promote it enough to give Nintendo and its Wii a good run for its money.


Nintendo may have a million unit lead, but the race is most certainly not over yet…

Hondan

Great article...

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ScootaKuH

Depressing news. Let's hope we don't see a similar thing happening over here, although I'm starting to think it's already too late. It must leave people wondering if the PS3 is even worth preordering, and if it's dead even before it's arrived.

*Chris*

This article was a good read.

But like it stated, the race is most certainly not over yet (although Wii will be ahead for a looong time to come yet, I think)

I really dont think the PS3 will sell that much over here in UK/Europe. On Saturday, I was outside GAME and this twenty-something year old read the sign "PS3, preorder now for £425" then came the "What? I'm not paying that!"

We shall see...but at the moment, it seems dire for the PS3. Still can't wait to get mine though. 11 DAYS!

Crossfade8448

yeah i think the whole problem is the price right now and the lack of advertising well....i saw and exellent video of the ps3 cell processor but i don't know how to put it on here or to put up a link...but people don't realize that if you get the xbox up to speed with the ps3 then it is about the same as the ps3 cost wise....and no one really knows what the ps3 is capible of because lack of advertising and i think also because the wii came out right afterwards it hurt sony cause a lot of parents buying their kids consoles for the holidays were thinking at the store...less money!
so right now it is up to us real gamers that like to own all systems or the sony fanboys to start saying screw the price (cause you can't even get a decient recliner for that price) and buy buy buy!!!
food for thought

ScootaKuH

I had a recliner once but it had even less games than a Gamecube so it didn't keep me entertained for long

In all seriousness the price is a huge downer, it does alienate the casual gamer, especially when you can get a Wii for roughly half the price. Me though, I wouldn't be without a Playstation and I would get a PS3 no matter what.

jesusraz

Whilst the situation is indeed quite dire over in Japan, things are likely to pick up soon enough. Sony's invested far too much in the console to let it just wither away and die, we all know that! It's nice to see Nintendo putting up such a good fight after years of dormant behaviour, though...

Crossfade8448

yeah that is cool for nintendo....they deserve it cause all their systems up to the n64 i enjoyed alot

ScootaKuH

Sony also invested a lot of money into the PSP but they've let that fall by the wayside. I know it's not a patch on the development costs of the PS3 but still a lot for a handheld. They just don't seem to be pushing their machines enough. I haven't seen a single advertisement for PS3 on UK TV and I can't remember the last time I saw one for the PSP either. The 360, Wii and DS, on the other hand, get quite a lot of airtime and it stands to reason that they're all selling well. On Sony's part, very pitiful.

jesusraz

The thing with the PSP is that it's Sony's first foray into the handheld world of gaming, whereas the PS3 is coming off the back of two generation leaders. Also there is a far greater risk for Sony overall if the PS3 fails badly...that's why I reckon it'll bounce back.