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PS5 sales hit 4 million in Japan; unit sales are tracking 20% above the PS4

zedinen

Member
LTD: Week 142

PS5 4,046,566

PS4 3,352,478

PS3 3,253,051



PlayStation Japan is off to its best start since 2003 (home consoles)

YTD (Week 31)

2003 PS2 1,738,794 (40,093)

2023 PS5 1,669,177 (53,211)

2004 PS2 1,532,488 (37,071)


YTD PS5


2023 1,669,177

2022 580,646
 
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Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
theGeek-PS5-Sales.jpg
VWPVe88.gif
 

Solidus_T

Banned
It's kind of strange since there were so many more games for PS4 vs PS5 by this time in its life. Not hating though! Well deserved.
 

Saber

Member
I'm actually impressed by PS3 and PS4 numbers, though I was thinking PS4 numbers were higher than that.
Good work for them.
 

Robb

Gold Member
I hope it continues and also starts to show more in the software charts. Nintendo needs some competition over there. Bring the pressure Sony!
 

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
Yet everyone says it's dead there. Why?
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
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
If thats true, we're done here. Digital has been growing exponentially on the home consoles. Without that, It's pointless to compare.
In the fourth fiscal quarter of 2023, approximately 70 percent of Sony Corporation's PlayStation gaming sales were generated via digital downloads
 

Woopah

Member
If thats true, we're done here. Digital has been growing exponentially on the home consoles. Without that, It's pointless to compare.
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

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
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.
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
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.
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.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold 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.
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.
 

Woopah

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.
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.
 

Tazzu

Member
Chris needs to send his agent, the narrative is shifting!

Edit: Yep had a look, he's going to be clutching his love pillow hard on Wednesday nights from now on!
 
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Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
That's good to know. Although, software is more important.
 

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.
 

Woopah

Member
No one us arguing that. But, Switch doesn't have the 70-80% digital attach rate PS5 and Xbox do.
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.
 
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.
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
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.
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.
 
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