Yearly Hardware Sales Transitions in Japan

[johnsobas]

ioi said:
@darthdevidem01

Difference is that PS was unknown, Nintendo were dominating in Japan at the time and everyone was waiting for a N64 with Final Fantasy 64, Dragon Quest VII, Mario 64 and so on. Nintendo kept delaying it, Square and Enix switched to PS and the rest was history.

This time round, PS3 is coming off the back of PS2, the biggest and fastest selling home console in Japan's history, with a strong brand name and all the same franchises that made PS2 so popular, so you would have expected PS3 sales to resemble PS2 rather than PS

What I hadn't fully appreciated until I saw these figures is that PS3 is tracking significantly behind not only PSP but also Gamecube and even Saturn. It is only beating out Dreamcast be a couple of hundred thousand and this is with a price drop.

So unlike PS where FF VII was unexpected and propelled Sony into gaming stardom, with PS3 it is more a case of needing some big games and quickly if they want to avoid ending up around 5-6m.

5-6 million would be very good for a losing console in Japan ioi.  No losing console has sold more than 5.7 million in Japan.  PS3 isn't going to sell more than that if they can only get core gamers.