Famitsu Sales: Week 14, 2026 (Mar 30 - Apr 05)

[Otter]

archbrix said:

Louie said:

Just to chime in: Playstation hasn't been stable in Japan, at all. They had huge success with the PSP and moderate success with the Vita. We shouldn't forget that. I know for some reason people like to ignore handheld sales, but in Japan Playstation has declined a lot in popularity over the past decade. The Vita sold over 5 million units in Japan, I think. So they will probably decline by 5-6 million in sales this generation. Which is probably the reason why there are so many rumors of a handheld or hybrid PS6 version. 

Exactly.  Not factoring in handhelds when defining stability for Japan certainly won't give you accurate results.  Going from a home console userbase of 23m with the PS2 to 10.4m with the PS3 was offset by Sony adapting to the market with a handheld, resulting in a fantastic performance for Playstation during Gen 7.  Now in Gen 9, not only will the PS5 finish about a million behind the PS4 but there is no handheld at all to fall back on:

Gen 6 - 23m+ (PS2)

Gen 7 - 30m+ (PS3 + PSP)

Gen 8 - 15m+ (PS4 + PSV)

Gen 9 - 8.5m or so (PS5)

Sony absolutely needs a handheld or hybrid unit if it ever hopes to get back to that 15m+ userbase in Japan.

They're not going back to 15m, that's not even a "hope"...

Internally they're not gonna have these arbitrary hardware goals in mind anyway. They've all focused on broader revenue & ecosystem goals which is why we didn't see much end of life deals or pushes for the PS4/Switch to hit X amount of million sold.

Last edited by Otter - on 12 April 2026