| Aozora said: Most of Japanese gamers are still satisfied with their PS2s. If and when the next-gen consoles have enough titles that appeal to Japanese gamers, then you'll see a tidal shift of them adopting the newer platform. I think games like MGS4, GT5, FF13 will help PS3 alot (people go nuts for these games over here). And also the anticipated multiplatform games like Resident evil 5 will boost PS3 sales much more than for the 360. |
Everyone: Stop bringing up RE5. We have no idea where that game is going. Same with KH3. I doubt many people are buying consoles for games that haven't even been announced yet, and if they are, and that game doesn't go to the console they bought, then they must care enough about the game to go out and get whatever console it is on. Edit: Still applies for KH3... lol
I'm not saying that MGS4, GT5, FF13 won't help the PS3... it's just that it won't help it enough to blast it forward like so many people expect it to. Looking at this graph, shows the boost that the PS2 got (in Japan) from GT3 and FFX (the two biggest sellers for those series on the PS2). With a base of 35k (which might be low) as the "average without new releases/price cuts/etc", those two games helped the PS2 by about... 850k, and that's being generous. If we would consider the base to be closer to 40k, then it only helped it by about 650k. For the record, the average weekly sales during this period was 58k.
If we apply this to the PS3, it has average weekly sales of 30k year to date. I expect it to drop a little bit more, since DMC4 didn't provide a healthy (or lasting) boost, so I expect the average to fall to 25k or so over the course of the year. With 5 weeks or so accounted for holiday boosts, and 6 weeks already accounted for this year, that's another 1.03 million, plus holiday sales are usually 25-35% of the total year sales. Up to that point (the start of the holiday season), the PS3 would have sold (in Japan), 1.21 million, so holiday sales would be 520k or so (with the holiday being 30% of the total yearly sales), for a total of 1.73 million. Now give it the boost that FF13 and GT5 and MGS4 (even though as far as I know, only MGS4 has an actual release date in 2007), and it'd come to 2.58 million, putting the PS3 at roughly 4.5 million in Japan. I'd even give it an additional 500k to since when those games (FFX, GT3) came out, there were more people with PS2s (i.e. less people needed to get one) so the boost should be bigger for the PS3. So 500k to be nice. That's 5 million.
On the flip slide, the Wii should be average of maybe 60k through the year, 41 weeks left * 60k = 2.46 million. 30% of total yearly sales = holiday sales, so (2.46 + 500k first 6 weeks))/70% = total yearly sales = 4.23 million, for a total in Japan of roughly 9.1 million.
Now these calcuations I think I'm being super fair, and also note that these numbers would actually cut the Wii's lead in Japan from 2.75:1 to 1.82:1.
So is the PS3 in trouble in Japan? Not yet. You can't look at GC and PS3 sales and say "oh the PS3 isn't selling better than the GC was in Japan at this point." By the time the GC got to where the PS3 is now, the PS2 had over 10 million in Japan. The competition was too far ahead and too strong. Thus the GC sold poorly. The situation is a lot less dire in Japan, with only 5.37 million Wiis vs. 1.95 PS3s. The PS3 has to do 2 things this year: it has to move consoles, and it has to show it can move software as well.
And in the same sense, the Wii has to prove that too. No sense having a higher userbase if it can't move software.
