In Japan, quite a lot. There is no rental system in Japan, and if they buy it and sell it back in a week or two, they can get back 75% or more of the purchase price usually. It's not like GameStop for trade-ins in the U.S.
It's not a "play a few minutes at a time" game, and big-seller/important game has shown no correlation to higher download %s, to my knowledge (outside of sellouts). Therefore, there's no logical reason to expect an a large % of downloads with SS that I can see.
Good point about the not play a few minutes at a time but it is still a play lots and lots and lots of each day, which it makes it more likely they'll want the cart empty for other games.
I agree though who knows, but it does swing in SS's favour to do well.
I don't buy the whole return a system after one game through that's still a substantial hit at 75% of Vita + Soul Sacrifice - considering how many games they could buy and return instead of just soul sacrifice due to the console price. Not to mention how condition left in, time it takes to play and complete etc, I can only imagine a few people planning to do this but you may be right, it's the first I heard of it.
The explanations for why Soul Sacrifice should sell well digitally are all well and good, but do we actually have any evidence that reality works that way?
If memory serves me (and there's no guarantee it does) there were similar statements about Brain Age 3DS. "It's exam time, students are going to want to download the game so they can study in short bursts!" But the information we had suggested that the game did not sell notably well on the eShop.
I also don't remember anyone saying that Monster Hunter was selling particularly well on the eShop. That should be the most similar to Soul Sacrifice for most the reasons you've stated.
Since I don't have the information myself I can't make a definite statement, but what I'm suggesting is that the Japanese audience might not care all that much how suited a game is to digital. We know that they're willing to go digital if they can't find retail copies. But it might be possible that, having the option of digital or retail, the majority of the audience prefers retail.
That's the problem, not much evidence, especially from Sony. As 81 also mentioned there is more of a collection aspect with 3DS titles in general, not so much with Sony for a few reasons, one of which I think is key is how Sony focusses on digital with the Vita, the store has been really successful in general though, it sold more than PS3's store although not many were too surprised when the statements were announced.
A lot of older people especially have doubts about using their bank info online, even with Nintendo. I also imagine a lot of people who were interested in brain age bought the DS for it, likely buying the game at the same time in store/online. Other people may not have liked the digital policy, or wanted to increase their collection. I guess it seems only a few bought it in comparison, but that may just come down to how huge it was with the slighter older folks.
I'm impressed Monster Hunter did 20% digitally at launch according to a previous post here but that goes to show how even this genre, with Nintendo's download policy, still did well which donny2112 seemed to doubt was possible, although I don't know if MH sold out for a considerable amount of time, as he said it would cause exceptions.
I can accept it's likely many will prefer to get retail copies with the game, especially since a lot are buying the Vita for it, but I have a feeling a considerable amount of the rest of the userbase who is accustomed to how useful it is to have a digital title and have been anticipating Soul Sacrifice for a while now will likely go digital. If they like to collect as people do with the 3DS here then I wouldn't be a surprised if they bought both.
Of course there are quite a few reasons why it may not work out this way but I am quite positive about it.
Another anecdotal evidence for you Skyzard! from the vita Japanese psn.
So, can we assume that SS got higher downloads than boobs?!
Instant victory.
Btw how often do Sony put game cards for the digital copy in retail stores for other games?