I went game shopping in Osaka today and I found many, many used PS4 consoles. Almost every store I went into had at least one used console. I did not take pictures at one of the Sofmap stores and at Super Potato as they appeared to only have one used PS4 in stock. Altogether I saw 24 used PS4s in the seven stores I went into.
Sofmap in Osaka station (four consoles)
Mandarake by Umeda station (2 consoles)
Mandarake by Umeda Station (One more console by the entrance).
The main Sofmap store by Namba station (7 consoles on the second floor)
The main Sofmap store by Namba station (2 more consoles on the first floor)
The smaller Sofmap in DenDen Town (5 consoles)
The Mandarake in AmeMura (1 console). Also note the Biohazard Dreamcast for $2200!).
There are far more used PS4s in circulation than there were Wii U consoles last year. I saw the same thing, but to a slightly lesser extent in Akihabara a week ago.
Overall, I would say that gaming is on the retreat here. Several stores have disappeared in the two years I have lived here and several others in my area have shrunk the game sections of their store in favor of merchandise, manga, or porn. Fewer people use handhelds on the train even compared with two years ago. The obvious culprit is smart phones. More and more people seem to be getting their gaming fixes that way.
I do believe the PS4 will be a success here once Japanese games start arriving, but I think we will see a contraction of the home-console market. In the same way that the 3DS/Vita handheld generation will be smaller than the DS/PSP generation, I think the home consoles this generation will sell in smaller numbers than Wii/PS360 did.
This being said, I am not sure why people would trade in their consoles this quickly.
