| vfguy said: Yes, in Japan, they never have the actual consoles on the floor. They do have lots of display boxes on the floor, but that is not what my picture above is of. It is "Take-to-the-till" boxes that do go back out onto the floor. However, the actual stock in a store would be greater than the number of "Take-to-the-till" boxes on the floor. The Joshin store above also had a massive mountain of actual PS4 boxes (yes, with the handle) behind the counter. Naturally, anecdotal evidence is not the whole picture, but if I can go in to a total of five different stores late on launch day and the day after launch and all of them have stock, that doesn't look great. Of course, without knowing the allocation, this can mean any number of things. |
That is the thing, the store I went to in Machida, I called ahead the day before and they said they had just received additional stock, from the convosation i had with staff in line I was given the impression that they had sold over 500 consoles in that one store, on that one day, as shown in my picture they even gutted the xbox section to make a specific line for PS4-item buyers.
Doesnt mean it will happen across the country of course, i went in to a brick and mortar game store today in Yamato and they had lots of stock, but i think personally, we arent getting a clear picture just by going off of availability in stores, after all a lot of people are still avoiding major travel because of the snow, certainly in the north in hokkaido and gunma main is still somewhat delayed and many smaller cities are still dealing with the aftermath of the snowfall last week.
I suspect online orders were so high that Sony overcompensated with stock allocation, and what weve ended up with is lots left on shelves because of over-stocking, certainly i expected brick and mortar stores to have stock days after release even if stock was limited, thats how its always been, but if the larger stores are all receiving major stock levels like the one in machida then it stands to reason that there would be lots left.
Until we hear some official numbers though its purely guesswork on both sides of the fence.
I do however suspect the numbers to be higher than most people are expecting.
