Famitsu Sales: Week 49, 2025 (Dec 1 - Dec 7)

[Ashadelo]

IcaroRibeiro said:

Ashadelo said:

The reality

PS1 - great sales
PS2 - fantastic sales
PS3 - good sales
PS4 - not bad but not good sales
PS5 - needs help


PlayStation really only had 2 good generations and since then has been on the decline. Ironically, their decline in Japan started when they started to shift away from their home market. This isnt a hardware issue, no one buys hardware to shelf it, they buy hardware to play on it.

PS3 and PS4 are only 1 million apart. I'd classify both as "need help"

Sony is declining in Japan since the late days of PS2. 7 of the 10 best selling years in Sony history belongs to 1997 to 2004 period, this period they used to ship 3 million units early

PSP released in 2005 and was an instant hit that removed sales from their home consoles. PS2 lost over 50% of its sales in a matter of 2 years of PSP in the market. PSP was the sucessor of PS2 in Japan, not the PS3. Even more so because of Monster Hunter crazy during ~2007 that pushed Sony again to sell 3 million units yearly 

Sony killing Vita is what made them lose JP market, for japanese people there is no "real" successor to PSP until this day. They all went to Nintendo with Switch. It's not a coincidence Nintendo IPs that were never that popular in Japan started to sell like crazy in Japan last generation, Zelda comes to mind

I actually just looked at the sales difference between PSP and Vita and had no idea the drop was that hard. I hope PS6 does better in Japan, competition is always a driving force for innovation and pricing. But, Sony will have their work cut out for them if they hope to pull things around in Japan. While hardware will be a huge factor, they really need software that's their own (not third party) that Japan will eat up.