Sony: Likely to meet annual PS3 sales target.

[Michael-5]

TheSource said:

Gran Turismo 5 is releasing in November in Japan. That isn't really the holiday season over there, its about a month early.

I'm expecting it to open to  at least 400,000 , maybe as much as 500,000 and then to drop off quick in Nov...then build up a bit in Dec / Jan and then drop out of the top thirty in late February. The trick is Sony has already released Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, which will be more than good enough for some people, and Gran Turismo Portable released last year. Beyond that, the PS3 base hasn't really proven it can support huge fanbases in Japan. At the moment, Final Fantasy XIII is behind eight SNES, PS1, and PS2 era Final Fantasy titles in Japan for instance.

What we know right now is this:

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is at 72% of where Gran Turismo 4 Prologue eventually reached in Japan, 570,000 instead of 790,000. This isn't really an issue of time either - GT5 Prologue has had years to sell as GT4 Prologue did. Its a base issue.

Gran Turismo 4 sold 1.26m in Japan. I don't know that the prologue to prologue transition will be exactly the same as the main game to main game transition, but if it was, you'd expect Gran Turismo 5 to sell about 900,000 units lifetime in Japan, with an opening of 485,000 (vs. 684,000 for GT4). Gran Turismo 4 also sold less than Gran Turismo 3 in Japan, so the pattern of decline seems well established - the dual releases (prologue, main game) all see the Gran Turismos main game sell less than the main games without Prologue in Japan.

Moreover, Gran Turismo 4 Prologue opened to over 200k and provided a 30k hw lift. Gran Turismo 5 Prologue opened to 109k and provided only a 21k lift. Can't really know what GT4 pushed by itself - it released during the peak weak of the 2004-2005 shopping season.

The game that offers the best comparison I believe is Metal Gear Solid 4. That opened to nearly 500,000 on PS3 in Japan in a non-holiday month. PS3 jumped from 11,000 to 77,000 on MGS4 in Japan. Metal Gear Solid 4 also had a console bundle in Japan as Gran Turismo 5 will. PS3 should jump up a 60,000 - 80,000 on Gran Turismo 5 but its just not a Final Fantasy XIII level bump. If PS3 is doing 20,000/week in late October as it is in mid-September you'd only expect GT5 to push PS3 to 90,000 or so ( 70,000), rather than the 120,000 push to 243,000 Final Fantasy XIII provided in December 2009. Essentially, PS3 had four weeks over 100k in Japan between Sept - Dec 2009, and one week of those four (FFXIII week) was over 200k in Dec 2009. This year, PS3 will have probably one or two weeks over 100k in Japan, and no weeks over 200k...and so Oct - Dec will be down, as the FFXIII week was nearly 25% of PS3 sales (243k / 908k) in that quarter of 2009.

In the USA, PS3 will do 250,000 or 300,000 in September 2010, and then 200,000 - 250,000 in October 2010 instead of 320,000 or so. That should set up a down Nov - Dec.

For Europe, GT5 should hold up better than in the USA or Japan but its still probably not enough to create an 'up' Oct - Dec 2010.

I don't really have Move pushing much hardware in 2010, it seems like a 2011 thing really, since its not launching with a Wii Sports game that offers a totally new experience, or a Zelda-like game with millions of fans about to try motion controls.

I agree 100% and would like to add that GT4 Prologue came out only 14 months before Gran Turismo 4 actually was released, where GT5 Prologue will have been released almost an entire 2 years before GT5. If GT5 Prologue still hasn't matched GT4: Prologue sales in Japan at that time, that says something about how excited people are about the game.

However I don't think it's the game fault, it's the smaller install base of the PS3 in Japan. Can't wait to see how well it sells worldwide.