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

[Nautilus]

Faelco said:

Nautilus said:

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.

Don't worry, the "ridiculous forums" part wasn't specifically about you, it's more of a reaction to all the recent Japan sales threads. Sorry if I seemed too harsh.

My Vita/PSVR argument wasn't that it's selling well, quite the opposite. You were saying that retailers were the one not ordering PS4s because they were disappointed about the sales. My point is that the Vita and PSVR sales are way lower than the PS4, and the retailers have Vita and PSVR all the time. And the sales are not bad enough for it to be months old stocks, so they do order Vita and PSVR regularly, enough to have a constant stock. It would be perfectly ridiculous for them to decide to not order enough PS4 because they think it doesn't sell enough, and yet order more than enough Vita and PSVR, don't you think?

I know that we can't be sure about something just because of a few stores. But we don't have that much people here trying to buy a PS4 in Japan, so we can't get a lot more info than that. Some other users checked the online stores of big Japanese retailers and the PS4 wasn't available either (right now the only PS4 sold by Amazon themselves and available is the Shadow of Mordor bundle...). When it's the same things for weeks or months, it's maybe not enough to understand the problem entirely, but it's IMO enough to understand that there is a problem.

New anecdotal evidence. I went to get my GoW bundle this morning, 2 weeks after my last time in the store. Still no PS4 available at all, except for a dozen preordered bundles (I preordered the last one 2 weeks ago). Switch, PSVR, Vita and Labo all available, with a lot of stock for Switch and Labo. The store was very quiet and empty though, maybe too early. Families will surely go get Labo tomorrow.

What would you say if a big Gamestop in a city like New York or London didn't have any PS4 for more than 2 weeks, maybe a month? Normal situation or shortage? For me, it's not normal...

I would say that the stock for said console would be bad or have some management problem when it comes to New York, maybe I could say that this problem would extend to most major cities in the US, but I wouldnt say the same for the entire country.

Anyways, without further clarification, this is all just hypothetical.I think that, after Golden week comes and goes and we get data from the week after that, we can get a better picture of the situation.I still personally expect for the truth to be betwenn what I believe and what you believe, but we will see.