I knew that size and price matter (in addition to availability of course). It would be nice to see series s in so many anime variations
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Xbox Series S by itself outsold the PS5 in Japan last week (May 9-15)
- Thread starter Biosnake
- Start date
Japan has walked away from Sony, even the PS4 didn't sell as well as PS3 did there.
Players in Japan simply don't like what Sony is putting out these days, and Sony is in no hurry to change their MO.
Sony basically send all their Stock for Golden week and sold about 50K consoles in those two weeks. People that follow these threads know, that Hardware is not Sonys "issue" in Japan, but Software is.
Funny thing is, what applies to Sony can very well also apply to Xbox. Meaning the consoles that are sold there, are shipped to China.
Funny thing is, what applies to Sony can very well also apply to Xbox. Meaning the consoles that are sold there, are shipped to China.
Nice to see Xbox doing much better (all-around) this gen and without any major game drops recently. MS needs to start doubling down on exclusive content for this market/region (all day one on gamepass.)
See this is why Playstation moved its headquarter out of Japan. They knew that Microsoft was coming to take over. The series S is an unstoppable force of nature. They knew better and just got out of the way.
Well it's that or just low PS5 stock. OK fine, it's just PS5 stock
Great marketing moment for MS and it is an interesting thing to occur for sure, but low PS5 stock is the reason. Its the same here in the US... I can walk into any Target or Best Buy in my area (S. Florida) and buy a Series S. Hell, I was able to get a Series X recently with no problem from Best Buy. Granted, the X goes out of stock when it does get on the shelves, but not as quickly as PS5s that disappear within minutes... For me, the X was in stock for several days at the time I bought mine last month. I just wonder what the numbers would be if there was no supply shortage of either PS5 or Xbox X/S. I think that the PS5 would be demolishing the Xbox by a big margin. But, who the hell knows. The global supply chain is so screwed up right now.
No that's not all. The real story is how well the Series consoles are doing in Japan this gen comparatively to other Xbox consoles. Gamers aren't just going to buy an S because the PS5 is hard to find. There's a reason it's so popular there, and that reason is most likely Game Pass.
it's been seen that Xbox Series S's don't sell out immediately, so supply has caught up with demand for the most part. so I don't believe many systems are being exported
It's a two-way street, I would say. If Sony was doing anything, even a little bit, to capture Japanese players' attention they would be doing better over there than they are. But they've gone Super Saiyan Blue Super Saiyan-level "only the West matters", so of course nobody is going to hang onto a PS5 when they get one. There's nothing for them to play.
Right now Sony is facing a combination of no stock to sell to Japanese consumers, no software of interest to Japanese consumers, and an extremely aggressive reseller market making it so people who buy hardware would rather flip it for a profit than keep it and use it, preventing the few consoles that ARE sold from meaningfully contributing to software penetration.
If Sony was at least trying to put out games relevant to Japanese consumers, the second and third points might be mitigated slightly. The main point is that they need to get consoles in people's houses before FFXVI comes out or the game is going to crash and burn locally, because unless they air-drop 300,000 PS5s into Japan the day before XVI launches (which, unless they're stockpiling consoles RIGHT NOW to prepare for, is effectively a logistical impossibility), the game is going to have one of the worst launches of the entire FF series domestically. And that's going to embarrass both Square and Sony.
It's only comparative to the abysmal Xbox One that they're doing well, the 360 and OG Xbox are far ahead launch aligned
It is doing better than Xbox One in Japan but worst than Xbox 360 or original Xbox.
It is only beating the Xbox one. I am not sure about the original xbox, but last time I saw it was nowhere near the xbox 360 (which had strong japanese support early, which obviously helped).
But how would he be able to doom if he actually knew the facts ????
it's doing worse than the 360, and even that's because of supply constraints. so uh yeah the PS5 supply constraints are definitely also an issue
Itll probably catch up to the OG. XBOX had a good launch but its doing like 5k weekly less than Series consoles launch aligned.
Guess the stock ran out lol
Congrats to Xbox. It could be interesting if they can actually keep up for once.
Congrats to Xbox. It could be interesting if they can actually keep up for once.
At the very least, I hope this pushes Japanese developers to not ignore the Xbox anymore. For example, Arc System Works avoids Xbox like the plague unless Bandai Namco is footing the bill.
It will probably surpass the OG Xbox too, with how it's trending. Pretty sure it could do some 360 numbers if it had any stock lol (not that it would actually surpass the 360, of course)
This isn't enough of a sales boost to make a difference on Japanese publishers' support of Xbox.
Really curious about how FFXVI does there, and what it does for the PS5. From day one it's been the only PS5-only game that seemed like it would draw a lot of interest in Japan. Might even be why it was announced when it was.
Most PS5s and XSXs bought in Japan are being re-sold. There's virtually no Japanese console market outside of Nintendo and the diminishing returns of what can be sold on PS4.
lol, this doesn't mean shit to them. if the western sales aren't changing their minds, JP sales ain't gonna do shit
It could, but mainline FF games are usually killer apps for a new generation of hardware, so if they push XVI into being cross-gen, the PS5 officially has zero killer apps for Japan. It would effectively be a death sentence for the console ever having a chance to recover domestically. Is that the tradeoff Sony and Square are willing to risk?
Yeah lol. A Guilty Gear port would pay for itself with western sales, these japanese sales aint gonna do shit to convince arcsys.
Numbers from InstallBase for context, the LTD numbers at week 79 are/were:
Xbox One ~60-65k
Xbox Series ~205k
OG Xbox ~402k
360 ~ 400k
Week 79 was roughly the point when 360 passed the OG Xbox in Japan and from then on it began to sell considerably more.
I wouldn't be so sure. It definitely doesn't mean we're going to see Japanese Developers never skip the box but it does put more weight into consideration (As a big issue developers had with the X1 was the lack of presence in Japan).
Xbox will always be a niche in Japan, it will never come close to selling as much as Switch or PS5 but a devoted niche can be enough to consider a release. We're already seeing that now (and even have an Xbox Japan Indie showcase coming up). That would've been unheard of a gen ago and not everyone is getting a game pass check either.
I guess the question is what it'll be compared to in terms of expectations. FF7R and FFXV sold between 700k-800k in their first week (in Japan), and FFXVI selling in that same range would already make it the largest PS5 debut. Hard to know whether it's feasible given the hardware is lacking and no software has debuted in similar scale for the platform so far.
Ironically, from a pure console cost and use perspective, I'd expect the S to catch on more than the X because of the size and ease of use. If MS leaned into that a bit to revive the 360 BC work again to get more JP games (localized here or exclusive to Japan) they'd maybe get a bit more of a foothold by marketing as allll these games you didn't play for nearly 20 years can be played here!
But looking at the numbers, it's amazing what availability will do to sales numbers, lol.
But looking at the numbers, it's amazing what availability will do to sales numbers, lol.
I mean this is still a markedly worse performance than Xbox had in Japan during the 360 era. All they're doing is outpacing the XB1, which functionally didn't exist in Japan at all.
For what it's worth, nobody seems to be doing that? It's just a cool fact that it's, like, the second time in history that it's happened.
I'd be surprised if it went that high considering the install base difference but I want to see if it indeed becomes the biggest launch on PS5 and by how much, as well as how long it stays on the chart.
The stock constraints are impacting everyone but considering where the X1 was at in Japan, this kind of turnaround is still pretty impressive to see.
I think it's guaranteed to become the biggest PS5 launch by default but I expect it to sell significantly less than VIIR and XV. I wouldn't be shocked by 350k units tops. There just aren't enough active PS5 users in Japan to support a 700k+ launch.
Sony definitely took some steps to move away from Japan. The console is huge. The controller is larger than the dualshocks. The circle and cross buttons are no longer swapped for Japan. Sony barely has any Japanese developers anymore. Playstation HQ is no longer in Japan.
Nintendo has made a strong effort to keep their roots in Japan. It feels like Playstation has left Japan behind. Not sure if that's good or bad.
Can you blame them, tho? It's a declining market.
And their positioning has been trending in that direction since the PS3.