| Bofferbrauer2 said: But even with digital sales outselling physical ones 2:1 there still wouldn't be enough games sold to get to a ratio of just 1 game per console, which is abysmal no matter which way you try to turn it. It would need over 70% of the software sales to be digital in Japan just to break even with the hardware sales, which is still a pretty tall order in a country which values it's physical games much more than most other countries do. The only way to know more would be if there's a regional split in the software earnings in Sony's latest financial report. Does anybody knows if that's specified and could get a link to verify? |
Do you have any source that shows that Japan is predominantly still physical? The only source anyone gave me essentially confirmed digital growth but clarified developers could be leaving sales on the table if they under shipped at retail. For the Playstation platform in particular, digital sales have been trending above 50% for a few years now, so a 55% - 60% digital cut in Japan doesn't seem far fetched.
The software performance is not the best even with digital, but the PS5 has yet to get any Japanese centric software, with Resident Evil 8 being the first big one (which isn't that big compared to MH, FF & GT7), but comparing Sony's first party in particular, Miles Morales & Demon's Souls retail sales aren't far behind other PS4 titles in their first year, barring Knack that was bundled, and digital sales would put them comfortably above other first party PS4 software.
Sony doesn't provide regional data on their software earnings. The best we'd probably get is Sony clarifying the digital/physical split in Japan. We do know that the PS5 has sold 11% more software than the PS4 through a similar time frame though.
Last edited by PotentHerbs - on 12 May 2021
