PS5 Gaining More Traction in Japan as It Tops Weekly Hardware Chart

That's nice to see.
One of the appeals of Sony's output over the years has been crazy titles inspired or crested with the Jap audience in mind.
Getting a solid Hardware base in Japan means we are still likely to see such titles among the line up in future, and that pleases me a great deal!

Do we know how well the PS5 is doing compared to PS4 launch aligned?

PS4 did like 20k/week consistently, pretty early into its life cycle iirc.
PS5 hasn’t even had a price cut yet (it’s gone up actually), so there might be some hope to reach 10million lifetime.

Hardware sales are good, but software really is bad. 5.4K for GT7- the only PS game to chart, in a week where 42k consoles were sold is surprising. Are Japanese PS players more used to buying digital?

Maybe just preparing for future games like FF XVI, VII Rebirth, SF6, Tekken 8 etc.

This year promises to be interesting in terms of big games from Japanese developers.

I don't have shares in any of these companies so I don't care who sells more of what.

But it is really interesting that the PS4 still sells and keeps up with the digital edition, not to mention more than both Xbox consoles.

Sony really did something with that wonderful machine. Probably the last time they hit those levels ever again.

@Atreus97, The PS4 has not even hit 10 million in Japan yet , With the way PS5's have been selling in Japan lately, it will eventually catch up to that figure, maybe even surpass the PS3, which too had only sold about 10 million.

@schekter seems like the most logical reason, important year for PS5 and Japanese Developed games.

@KaijuKaiser I’m just spitballing, but with the living situation over there & over population I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t want boxes of plastic taking up space.

I have 4 storage boxes filled with games & hardware over 25+ years of collecting. That’s a lot of space for games I’ll probably never play again.
Luckily I keep those games at my parents house😅.

Nintendo is sold around 1.5 million more Switch OLED models in half the time it's taken Sony to sell 2.2 million. I would be be celebrating that number one spot, with rumours of the Switch replacement being announced this year. And Zelda 2 coming.

Software sales isn't that surprising, compared to ps2 Era, not many companies are taking risks or releasing fresh idea. Majority is remasters or sequels with incremental changes. Coipled with the fact everyone was gaming in lockdown so now that its over less sales. Saying that next few months are full of games so hopefully software sales increase

software sales showing that Japan dont get console bundles.

ps5 sales have looked steadily around 40k recently

It's nice to see PS5 doing better in Japan but if only more titles were in the software charts...

@Titntin 100% agreed on that, as Japanese gaming has gone more PC and mobile. When I look at my purchase history of the past few years across both PS and XB it's like 8 Japanese titles to every 2 non-Japanese, pretty much by pure coincidence of what's grabbing me. Ironically nearly all the Western titles are PS exclusives and all my XB purchases are Japanese...

Maybe Square will stop trying to become Western if Japan actually buys games...though it looks like they're only buying hardware and not games....

@Fight_Teza_Fight I wonder if there's F2P games and games with mobile tie-in like Genshin that are really driving the hardware sales for now. It wouldn't show up in charts. Could also be just buying the "video card upgrade" for their existing games (Minecraft!)

It's especially weird because Japan in particular has always had console sales coupled very tightly to game releases, where a big release saw a big spike in hardware moving, and no releases saw sluggish hardware sales. So seeing japan buying consoles and seemingly not buying new games is definitely weird. It's GOT to be about the F2P games and upgrading existing games they own.

@NEStalgia I don’t really follow the Japanese charts anymore, but it does seem that the PS5 is doing better than the PS4 did.

Then again the PS4 launched late in Japan- unlike the PS5 which was a worldwide release. Perhaps that is affecting the launch aligned numbers?
F2P can certainly be a factor, but in a week where PS5 sold 42k+, but the only game to chart is GT7 at 5.4k it’s certainly is sus.

The only way that I could explain it is that Japanese PS gamers have a more eclectic taste or that digital is way higher over there.
Japan is weird😅.

@Fight_Teza_Fight USUALLY digital is proportionately lower in Japan than elsewhere. They still have a stronger physical collectable item culture. You wouldn't think so with the clutter, but they do (or did until now?) It's weird, suddenly Japan starts buying consoles and not buying software to go with it!

Unless some of these are being resold outside Japan at scalper prices still? Otherwise it's got to be the F2P titles and the general upgrades for existing games. But yeah, definitely weird!

Are those 83 2DS units just for jailbreaking?

The lack of titles in the top10 doesn’t necessarily mean they are not buying software …they are buying different software as the PlayStation crowd tends to be more diverse than Nintendo’s audience (that typically just focus on Nintendo games) and sometimes I end up having conversations with people owning PlayStation but we don’t share a single gaming interest 😅

@NEStalgia I thought it might be re-sellers as well, but a cursory glance online shows a ton of American PS5 stock at or below MSRP on the secondhand market, so it doesn't seem like there'd be any reason to target Japanese stock drops for people outside of that region.

Even accounting for the fact that Playstation has very few blockbuster titles in that region, though, you'd expect to see moderately improved software sales for certain titles in the top ten when the bar is as low as it is on the bottom end.

It's all very strange.

@Ralizah What about China? Could there be a big China export business going on? I know the console is officially available there, but, that doesn't mean supply is good, prices are good, or various aspects of anything "official" in China do any better than importing like how it's always been there.

The pattern just doesn't match Japanese console sales trends. No big physical game sales. Hardware sales not coupled to big new game releases. It just doesn't fit how Japan buys consoles. I mean I guess it could be all about Forspoken Someone did say that was outselling the new Fire Emblem which makes no sense at all, but neither is hitting the chart, so that doesn't say much about either of them.

Guess it could be prep work for VR2?

@NEStalgia If people were buying in anticipation of something, it could just as easily be for upcoming blockbusters like Final Fantasy or Spider-Man 2 (I believe the first one sold well in Japan?).

Another explanation is that perhaps there's been more demand for the console than available stock, so this is just people grabbing the device because it's available. Sort of like how the dip in Switch sales is probably more attributable to post-Holiday shortages than to a sudden drop in demand.

"Someone did say that was outselling the new Fire Emblem which makes no sense at all, but neither is hitting the chart, so that doesn't say much about either of them."

??

Fire Emblem is #1 on the list.

@Ralizah Yeah, Spiderman is the only western superhero popular in Japan because his origin story kind of gels with their hero story templates, but Japan generally has never bought consoles in anticipation of software. I was just thinking maybe anticipation of a hardware accessory is different since you need both pieces of hardware so buying the consoles and VR together might yield the console shipping now when in stock while VR remains preorder....or something.

It could be just due to stock coming in, or could be waiting lists finally shipping out. But then you'd think software would jump with that too. Japan never did the "buy it because it's available thing". I mean there's always a first, but "FOMO" has never applied in Japan in general beyond "limited edition" things.

Hah, someone said that in the Forspoken thread on the forums and I didn't even double check this list. Yeah, I have no idea what that was about then. (Edit: Oh it was specifically Amazon JP that Forspoken was outselling, not the total sales numbers. Still weird, but I guess Japanese Switch owners aren't big Amazon fans while PS owners are?)

Do we have numbers on PS Plus Extra/Premium performance there? I wonder if Japan could be going all-in on subscriptions at this point and are buying PS5s to play the Plus catalogue? That could be it.

@NEStalgia Forspoken released after Fire Emblem, right? It makes sense that sales for the game would spike right after launch. With that said, looking at the list, Fire Emblem is ahead of Forspoken now, but both games are sold out atm. Interestingly, the PS5 version of Hogwarts Legacy is topping the chart atm, right under the PS5 itself, which is in first place. Is Harry Potter popular in Japan? I hadn't even considered it, but maybe the spike in sales is in anticipation for that game?

@Ralizah That's possible. I didn't really equate Harry Potter and Japan, but it fits their story ideals well, and there's a wizarding world universal Japan attraction so I'd assume it's sufficiently popular. Maybe that's it, getting stock while available as that game launches. If the game launches and doesn't hit the charts,I guess we'll know that's not it.