Japan sales (Week 15): Media Create/Famitsu/Dengeki - April 9 - 15, 2018

[Nautilus]

Faelco said:

Nautilus said:

Not wanting to sound like a jerk, but thats kind of an anecdotal evidence.Not to mention that while the demand for PS4s may be high in Tokyo, it may not be so for the rest of Japan.Plus, having Switches on stock dosent influence how much PS4 should be on stock too.I mean, if anything the effect should be contrary:Since the Switch sells better on Japan than the PS4, retailers will tend to favor it.But thats besides the point.

Its just that I personally find much more reasonable for the problem to lie in the retailers rather than solely on Sony.Why then, would impede Sony for shipping an extra 10k to Japan?GOW release?10k would hardly make a difference in the west, considering how much they manage to sell there.Unable to manufacture PS4 in the factories?Such a thing hasnt happened for years, and given its only influencing Japan(apparently) I dont think its the reason.Preparing for the launch of a new slim model?Can be, but its highly unlikely, given that we are few months away from E3, and this problem has been persisting for longer than the time that such announcement would usually take.

I mean, it could be the Golden week, and retailers and/or Sony are just holding stock for it, but I dont believe it.But if PS4 sales go back to normal after that week passes, Ill be the first to admit I was wrong.

Gotta love the convenient "anecdotal evidence". 

 

"I wonder why people don't buy PS4 in Japan... Oh, you live in Japan and can't buy a PS4 because the stores are out of stock? Anecdotal evidence! I wonder why people really don't buy PS4 in Japan..." 

 

Those forums are sometimes ridiculous... A couple of months ago it was "OMG The Switch is so sold out, it could sell 100k if it was in stock" even if it wasn't that hard to find one here, and now "Bah, the PS4 is selling 10k, everything is normal, nobody cares about it, the MHW craziness with 110k sales was just a one-week anomaly".

 

There is some big issue in the supply chain. Don't know if Sony decided to focus on EU and US, if a new SKU is coming, or if they just have some problem somewhere, but I'm pretty sure the situation isn't something wanted by people trying to make a living selling consoles and video games. Otherwise they would have Vita shortage too, not just PS4. But nope, you can buy a Vita anytime. PSVR too. Are you telling me that retailers prefer Vita and PSVR over PS4? Really? 

I do agree that these forums can be ridiculous sometimes.There are some users from the Sony side that whenever the PS4 is treading bad waters, they say stuff like "Home consoles on Japan are dead, so it selling this bad is normal"(There is already one comment like this on here, you can check out) or "PS4 is doing great overseas, so Sony dosent care about Japan", but when PS4 starts doing well on it, like it did when MHW arrived, the tone totally changes, and start saying stuff like "heh, thiose idiots that thought that PS4 was dead on Japan" or things of the same sort.Heh, I even remember a user here who went on claiming that the Switch would fail to sell well on Japan because he was reading on japanese forums that those users werent very fond of the machine.It was a very entertaining period.And the same thing can be said for the Nintendo side, where some users can get very defensive when Nintendo consoles start doing bad on Japan and there isnt a legit reason for it doing bad.The usual sentences arent far off of the ones you just posted.other ones you usually see are "Nintendo consoles are more popular on the USA, so they are sending more units there, thats why the stock is so low this weak!".You know the drill.

Having said that, please, please stop this Faelco.I am not one of those people, and while I do admit its simply more fun at the moment to cheer for Nintendo, I am as unbiased as possible when it comes to these situations, when we try to analyse whats going on.I mean, I like to believe you know me enough to know Im not as blind as you seem to suggest.So lets stop this kind of nonsense talk, please?

First of all, about your whole Vita and PSVR point:Who said that, only because they have supply, it means that the demand for them is high?Who is even saying that they are selling well?Having stock dosent mean its flying off the shelves.Actually, its most likely the oposite, as Media Create shows(at least for Vita).It could be a stock that was bought 3 weeks, 1 months, maybe even 2 months ago, and they didnt manage to sell it all yet, while the PS4 manages to sell everything that is being shipped, which seems to be, at least for the last month, anywhere between 10k to 20k.Second, as Im much in the dark in this situation as you.I dont know whats the cause.And like I said, if it ends up being exclusively a supply problem, Ill be the first one to admit.I simply just think thats its more likely that its a mix of supply problems coupled with retailers buying less stock.Now the reason for that i have no idea.Dwindling sales due to its age, Switch canabilizing a bit of its market, pre Golden week, lack of compelling software.Could be any of those reasons.Probably its a combination of all of them.

And just to adress the anecdotal evidence part:Its not that I dont believe you, its simply that, just because a couple of stores that you go through dosent have PS4 on them, you cant make a conclusion on that alone that PS4 must be having supply problems.Without more evidence and proof, there could be any number of reasons behind it, like the ones I already said.And just to clarify:if someone came and said the same thing but about the Switch, I would also call BS on that.

And sorry for the late reply.I went to sleep, then I had classes and a bunch of responsabilities to attend to.