An Early Look at Q1 2011 vs. Q1 2011 in Japan

[TheSource]

This won't be official until 9 days from now, when April 2 data comes in but I've run the numbers and some general trends emerge:

1) Everything Continues to Weaken in Japan - Across the Board

            Q1 2011 E                Q1 2010           Q1 2009

Wii       220,000                    503,000           295,000

PS3       370,000                   458,000            306,000

X360     34,000                       47,000             127,000

PS2        21,000                     28,000               76,000

DS         360,000                  717,000             843,000

PSP       588,000                  726,000             607,000

3DS       845,000           

Total (E)  2.438m            2.479m                 2.254m  

I've included Q1 2009 to show how much Wii / PS3 were helped by price cuts / big games late in 2009 even in early 2010. Wii & PS3 sales are both about 1.4m units over the last 52 weeks - price drops would help quite a bit.

2) Due to 3DS, Nintendo has sold more hw in Q1 2011 than in Q1 2010. Sony & Microsoft sold less.

                      Q1 2011 E      Q1 2010      Q1 2009

Nintendo       1.425m           1.220m       1.138m

Sony              979,000            1.212m       989,000

Microsoft      34,000             47,000         127,000

3) Declines are Pretty Substantial from Q1 2010 to Q1 2011 Across the Board - 19% to 56%

Wii Q1 2011 vs. Q1 2010 = -56%

DS Q1 2011 vs. Q1 2010 = -50%

PS3 Q1 2011 vs. Q1 2010 = -19%

PSP Q1 2011 vs. Q1 2010 = -19%

X360 Q1 2011 vs. Q1 2010 = -27%

PS2 Q1 2011 vs. Q1 2010 = -25%

Without 3DS hardware in Q1 2011 would be down 36% overall in Japan. Even with 3DS hardware looks like it will be down 2% from Q1 2010.

4)  Wii, X360, and PSP are radically out of whack between the USA & Japanese markets.

The margins are growing too.

Wii US / Wii JP in Q1 2011 = 1.25m / 220k ---> The USA is NOT 6 Times Bigger than Japan as a market (x2.8 in Q1 2010)

X360 US / X360 JP in Q1 2011 = 1.45m / 35k ---> It sure as hell isn't over 40 Times Bigger than Japan as a market (even last Q1 X360 only performed x23 better in the USA than in Japan)

PSP JP / PSP US in Q1 2011 = 588k / 240k --->  Japan is not 2.5x larger than the USA as a market (x2 in Q1 2010 for JP).

My theory on this is that X360 in the USA is what PSP is in Japan. Wii in Japan is simply a matter of not maintaining crtical levels of third party support.