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Japanese retailer express disappointment over low PS5 games sales due to lack of PS5 owners

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch

Japanese tv station recently did a check in a game store, and the owner claims that they have a hard time selling their PS5 games because there’s too few PS5 owners. In fact its worse than PS4 launch. On a lucky month they will have 1 or 2 new PS5 console stock to sell. He says that the sales situation is very severe.

Some commentators says that most of the stocks are in the west so Asia didn’t have stocks. A few also says that Sony brags about selling lots of PS5 but they are not in the hands of players.

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lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
We need to face the fact that Japanese plays different games than the west.

most of us is not going to play their "favorite" games in Japan.

"In fact its worse than PS4 launch. On a lucky month they will have 1 or 2 new PS5 console stock to sell."

btw, wtf?
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Digital sales too, which gimps all game sales across all platforms.

Who knows how game stores even stay in business now. Console hardware is a break even sale, people trending to digital sales, and with less physical copies means less used game sales at high margin.

There's only so many second controllers and trinkets you can sell.
 

MayauMiao

Member

Japanese tv station recently did a check in a game store, and the owner claims that they have a hard time selling their PS5 games because there’s too few PS5 owners. In fact its worse than PS4 launch. On a lucky month they will have 1 or 2 new PS5 console stock to sell. He says that the sales situation is very severe.

Some commentators says that most of the stocks are in the west so Asia didn’t have stocks. A few also says that Sony brags about selling lots of PS5 but they are not in the hands of players.

flFaei2.jpg
QPcmL7q.jpg
91c3e589faacc6e085a8217b953954e3.png
The 2 rows making up of PS5 titles, most of it are available on PS4 or other platform. The low sales isn't surprising.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
software sales are really dire this gen On anything but the tent poles, and I bet those are still majorly carried by last gen. FIFA etc.

uk charts are the worst with like a couple thousand sales to get to the top 5.
 

Notabueno

Banned
Wait till the current generation of degenerates figures out that their brains has been astroturfed into thinking that the PS5 sells...

The PS5 is not selling well at all, they're planning a 13m shipping date for the first year (that is being inflated by scalpers, however the reselling price being around 600€ instead of 1000€ tells you about how little demand there is), even though consumer purchase-to-release index is higher (meaning more people buy product closer to release than years before), versus a 14m shipping for the PS4 the first year...

People really are starting to become worthy of being considered like animals more than humans, they'll believe any bullshit and defend that bullshit with a bovine look.
 

kingfey

Banned
Not in Japan. The main issue here is scalping and to some extend, the lack of japanese PS5 exclusives.
If fifa is still number 1 in the chart for physical games in UK, then there is a problem too. Same thing for Japan.

Remember, fifa 22 sold more in digital, like 70%-80%. If that game is number 1 for physical games, despite 1 month release date, then the rest of the games are selling low numbers for their physical.

This is indication that people are going full digital.

There is 1m+ ps5 in Japan.

Here is 2021 physical games chart result from P Playcredit
PS5
339.685 copies sold

Physical games are dead at this point.

Japan should have higher sales in digital sales now. Nothing to do with scalpers.
 

Three

Member
We’ve been trying to tell the UK boxed sales fans that physical is dead!
Notice no fools here trying to make the same excuses about digital vs physical about a split which they cannot prove differs with digital. They simply accept the fact that sales are low.

Home consoles have been on the decline for a while now in Japan. I don't think more stock would help the PS5 all that much. The games releasing release on PS4 too but the chart is still mostly Switch. Japan is dominated by mobile and the portable Switch.
 

Three

Member
No need to be salty. Digital is maybe 20% of the Japanese software market so it won't have a huge impact either way.
I'm not salty. Tell that to those who come to the Japanese threads with baggage from the UK threads or vice versa. Digital and physical don't differ from other countries for other platforms. Japan is mostly physical because Switch sales are mostly physical and Japan is dominated by switch sales.
 
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kingfey

Banned
I'm not salty. Tell that to those who come to the Japanese threads with baggage from the UK threads or vice versa. Digital and physical don't differ from other countries for other platforms. Japan is mostly physical because Switch sales are mostly physical and Japan is dominated by switch sales.
8 years ago, yes. But not now.

People don't have time to buy physical games, when you can just log in to your console, and buy it from there.

Only a fool will buy physical at this stage, unless it's ps3/x360 and below.

There is a reason why mobile games are big in Japan now.
 

Three

Member
8 years ago, yes. But not now.

People don't have time to buy physical games, when you can just log in to your console, and buy it from there.

Only a fool will buy physical at this stage, unless it's ps3/x360 and below.

There is a reason why mobile games are big in Japan now.
Physical on Switch is bigger than on PS or xbox. I think they only crossed the half way mark last year due to covid and that was worldwide. Before that they (Switch games) were at 22% digital.
Nintendo fans just buy more physical. Maybe partly due to the value Nintendo games keep. They seem to have more collectors too.
 
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kingfey

Banned
Physical on Switch is bigger than on PS or xbox. I think they only crossed the half way mark last year due to covid and that was worldwide. Before that they were at 22% digital.
Nintendo fans just buy more physical. Maybe partly due to the value Nintendo games keep. They seem to have more collectors too.
Switch has shit storage, and switch physical games is small. You can have 20 switch physical games at the length of 1 ps5 physical games. Plus you have a case for switch games. That is 1 reason why people buy switch physical games.

And you are right about the value of Nintendo games. 3d games are expensive in this age, while ps2 games are like 5$.

For the ps5 physical case, the ps5 has 800+ gb storage. Compared to switch. You can have 10 games installed.

Ps5 games are cheap, so not that much worth for resale, compared to switch games. God of war is 20$, while Mario kart 8 is still 60$.
 

Celine

Member
We need to face the fact that Japanese plays different games than the west.

most of us is not going to play their "favorite" games in Japan.
That's not true.
A lot of americans and europeans play Nintendo games and those are by far the most popular games in Japan.
There are other third-party big hits in the japanese market like Minecraft, Monster Hunter, Dragon Quest and Momotaro Dentetsu, most of which have good to great diffusion in the west too (the obvious exception is Momotaro Dentetsu).

It's true however that some franchises that are absolutely huge in the west like GTA, CoD, EA/Take 2 sport games, Mortal Kombat, The Witcher, The Elder Scrolls, Halo, Uncharted are only moderately successful in Japan (way less than what they are in North America and Europe relatively to the markets size).
 
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Evil Calvin

Afraid of Boobs
Mainly mobile and Switch players. They don't have space for that monstrosity of a PS5. It waaaaay to big for most Japanese homes.
 

phil_t98

#SonyToo
Hasn’t japan changed what type of games and systems they play now. Isn’t mobile gaming huge there? Am sure the PS5 will come good there in time and there has been shortages everywhere still.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
Didn’t PS5 have 4-5 games in the Japanese charts recently?

Obviously comparing it to PS4 isn’t wise because theres been a lack of PS5’s in the market plus Covid
 

Daymos

Member
That's not true.
A lot of americans and europeans play Nintendo games and those are by far the most popular games in Japan.
There are other third-party big hits in the japanese market like Minecraft, Monster Hunter, Dragon Quest and Momotaro Dentetsu, most of which have good to great diffusion in the west too (the obvious exception is Momotaro Dentetsu).

It's true however that some franchises that are absolutely huge in the west like GTA, CoD, EA/Take 2 sport games, Mortal Kombat, The Witcher, The Elder Scrolls, Halo, Uncharted are only moderately successful in Japan (way less than what they are in North America and Europe relatively to the markets size).
Absolutely, alot of us older gamers who grew up with Nintendo and Sega still play more Japanese games than western games. Even when the playstation came around I was all about ridge racer4, Gran Turismo, Castlevania sotn, mega man X4, resident evil2... those aren't western franchises.

I see stuff like this and I wonder where the future of Japanese gaming lies..damn I wish the steamdeck could break into the JP market so we could see solid PC ports of everything from JP devs.
 

T-Cake

Member
Absolutely, alot of us older gamers who grew up with Nintendo and Sega still play more Japanese games than western games. Even when the playstation came around I was all about ridge racer4, Gran Turismo, Castlevania sotn, mega man X4, resident evil2... those aren't western franchises.
I always find that fascinating - I grew up with PC so had never even heard of things like Ridge Racer, Mega Man, Devil May Cry until I got a PlayStation much later on.
 
In my country the Dominican Republic almost 90% of the PS5 that are selling comes from japanese scalpers, even in big stores i saw PS5 Japan retail boxes. I bet that the same is happening on others Latin countries… looks like the real install base of PS5 users in Japan is really really low.
 

Tschumi

Member
Someone needs to shout "DUH!" in the faces of the owners lol

Blame supply shortages across multiple industries, champs.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
He should have opened a Deli and sold chips.
The trend stores have done the past bunch of years is might as well sell anything.

Canadian Tire here (a store that sells auto parts and all kinds of hardware and sports stuff for the home) has sold bags of sugar on their front page for $1.99.

Best Buy sells patio furniture.
 
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Impotaku

Member
When people go on about why are japan not embracing next gen & why they are releasing the same title in the charts on ps4 & ps5 at the same time it's because of this, there are so few people buying games that it would be death to any title that dares to go ps5 only as it will sell like absolute shit because of the install base hence the ps4 release as at least there's a larger install base so the devs sell a reasonable amount the problem is amplified when it comes to AAA. Sony have kind of fucked themselves in japan with a catch 22, there needs to be a big install base for the games to come in large numbers but nobody will buy a console of there's no software to play. No idea how sony can actually fix this it's not just players not wanting machines as there's still a scramble for them but look at the titles that are coming and there doesn't seem to be much in japan at all most people are probably using there ps5's for playing mostly their ps4 stuff with some next gen patches plus a few ps5 titles as they appear.

Without the install base it's not going to improve, look at switch it has a huge install base so even budget titles sell a shitload which is why a lot of the 3rd party devs that used to ignore nintendo are now making switch stuff. They can release non AAA types of game & get back a pretty healthy return. Sony needs to court those devs and not just concentrate on pumping out AAA stuff.
 

Konata990

Neo Member
its not that japan hates the PS5, but the fact that there are 3 factors that prevent the PS5 from being as popular as the PS4 there

1. there are scalpers in japan too (yeah you thought scalpers was just a western thing ??? nope)
2. Playstation forcing western games and western game releases for PS5 and not as many JRPG's or Japanese only games only on PS5
3. the fact the PS5 in japan uses the X button instead of O
 
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