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Forums - Sales Discussion - Japan - Was it really that great of an idea to delay PS4s to 2014?

thismeintiel on 28 December 2013
ICStats said:

If the market for home consoles in Japan is 22 million and Wii U has sold 1.3 million units then Wii U has "tied up" only 5% of the market during more than 1 year (2 holiday seasons).  Also in terms of software market Wii + PS3 sold over 133 million game units.  Wii U is at 2.9 million units - only 2.1% of the software market.  There is still lots of market to be had by the PS4.

People who would have bought in November are likely to still buy it in Feb.  Those sales from Nov to Feb aren't 100% lost.

Long term the availability of popular titles will be a much more important factor than launching a few months early.  Titles like Killzone and the current multiplats on PS4 aren't popular in Japan.  Take a look http://www.vgchartz.com/game/33543/killzone-3/.  Same goes for the other PS4 day 1 titles.  The current titles are statistically insignificant in Japan.

In February there will be 3 or 4 titles that have some popularity in Japan.  In March there's MGS5: Ground Zeroes.  That is what matters.

Very true.  And I know Wii U has done well these past few weeks in Japan, but we'll have to wait until after the holidays to see where its norm will be.  Most likely ~20K a week.  That is definitely not going to make it a threat to the PS4.

Oh, and it's good to see you didn't go all "off topic" and commit the evil sin of bringing up Sony global goals.  You know, cause Sony isn't a global company. 



 

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ICStats on 28 December 2013
thismeintiel said:

Oh, and it's good to see you didn't go all "off topic" and commit the evil sin of bringing up Sony global goals.  You know, cause Sony isn't a global company. 

It was tempting to say a sale is a sale.

Wasn't the OP arguing that Sony could have launched in JP instead of releasing 500K consoles in Asia & Middle East?  Where are those 500K consoles I wonder?  VGC counted 20K in "other" countries.



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007BondAgent on 28 December 2013

Yes, Sony could release the PS4 in 2015 and it would still dominate japan



thismeintiel on 28 December 2013
ICStats said:
thismeintiel said:

Oh, and it's good to see you didn't go all "off topic" and commit the evil sin of bringing up Sony global goals.  You know, cause Sony isn't a global company. 

It was tempting to say a sale is a sale.

Wasn't the OP arguing that Sony could have launched in JP instead of releasing 500K consoles in Asia & Middle East?  Where are those 500K consoles I wonder?  VGC counted 20K in "other" countries.

Well, they do have it at 43K, now.  That still seems a little low for new launches, but I'm not too worried about that.  What puzzles me is the fact that they have EU sales higher than NA, even though Sony UK stated that Sony is focusing the majority of their shipments on the US, hence there are still sellouts in much of EU.  I think NPD is going to be fun.  Oh, and I guess I did go a little off topic. 



 

Captain_Tom on 28 December 2013

The fact is they need to build back up a friend network in the US, and they also need some big JP games ready for launch...



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Viktor on 01 January 2014
Michael-5 said:
Viktor said:
Michael-5 said:
Viktor said:
Michael-5 said:

26 - 22 million is nearly a 20% drop, that's not the same. Anyway what's your point?

releasing PS4 in Japan a bit late won't affect overall sales really, and that's what matters the most. Plus Sony does need to focus on Vita right now in Japan.

The drop actually is just 16%. And if we would also consider Xbox/X360 it would be even less than that. The point is quite simple PS2 to PS3 lead to 12m less units down by 57%, while their competitor gained 8m units compared to its predecessors. If you can´t admit the correlation I really don´t know what your problem is.

That PSV was the main reason for the PS4 next year release date in Japan is an argument that I already mentioned several times in this thread. PSV is also a very recent example of how letting your competitor too much time to sort things out can lead to losing marketshare and that Nintendo and Sony systems actually are direct competition and not living in a vacuum.

So what's your point? Wii did better last gen, and PS3 did worse. Sony released the PS3 nealy at the same time as Wii, so how does this have anything to do with PS4 releasing a few months late in Japan? Do you think people are just going to buy WiiU's because there is no PS4 around? Would that be any different if there were a PS4 around with only western style games? I don't think so.

Do you really think that your last posts in which you tried more than once to deny Sony losing marketshare in the stationary console market largely due to Wii haven´t been ridiculous?


Also I was just responding to some who for some unknown reason think that WiiU and PS4 won´t affect each other and that it won´t matter if the competition gains an advantage for example due to not beeing on the market in Japan. In a market where Sonys own IPs aren´t really relevant in the grand scheme and even the newest entry of their biggest franchise Gran Tourismo 6 is beeing easily outsold by 3D World.

Another point is that in those 2 extra months there haven´t been relevant changes in PS4s launch window lineup (Yakuza would have still been one, even if PS4 had launched mid Dec. like in other Asian countries).

So what about Sony loosing console marketshare with the PS3 in Japan? Sony lost marketshare in all regions, they had a terrible console (initially), and Nintendo made a really really good one.

What does this have to do with PS4 releasing a few months late? It's not like PS3 sold less then Wii because of when it released. Sure Wii hurt PS3 sales, but it had nothing to do with when PS3 released.

PS4 releasing late won't hurt sales, especially since there would be no Japanese priented games at launch. It could hurt the image if anything, make it appear to be a more Western oriented console in Japan. I think because of Super Mario 3D World, if PS4 released in Japan now, it would look like crap in comparision.

Like I already said I was just responding to a user that said PS4 and WiiU won´t affect each other, the same thing was said about Wii and its competitors, looking at the available Japanese data it obviously was. In the last posts you have also been one of those who were trying to deny the obvious, that last gen Sony lost a good part of the market share to Nintendo, for whatever reason you didn´t want to acknowledge this and instead you tried to excuse PS3s performence in Japan solely on the general popularity of handhelds.



NYANKS on 01 January 2014

America's more important than Japan as far as sales go, and I still think they'll do pretty well when they launch. It'll beat Xbone at least.



Norris2k on 01 January 2014

I'm working in Japan in handled social gaming and can't see any high expectation and enthusiasm for PS4. I can't see either any kind of grudge from most people. Japanese are really about handled game, and understand they are not the dominant country anymore for console.

I think it will still probably sale relatively well, as there are still many gamers and xbox one is probably out of the game and Wii U not doing a stellar start.

Overall, Sony is currently containing Microsoft in USA, winning in Europe, and still in position to win in Japan. I don't know how it will be in one year, but I don't think it would have been a better position if Sony would had released earlier in Japan with higher supply constraints for Europe and USA.

Also, as Japanese market is very different, most western companies don't have significant sales here. So if you wan't active support from Activision, EA or Ubisoft, it's not good enough to have the same worldwide market, you need same or better sales in Europe and USA. Japanese companies will most definitly support PS4 as much or more than Xbox one anyway (and perhaps will not be so significant for this gen).



A_C_E on 01 January 2014
Viktor said:

Like I already said I was just responding to a user that said PS4 and WiiU won´t affect each other, the same thing was said about Wii and its competitors, looking at the available Japanese data it obviously was. In the last posts you have also been one of those who were trying to deny the obvious, that last gen Sony lost a good part of the market share to Nintendo, for whatever reason you didn´t want to acknowledge this and instead you tried to excuse PS3s performence in Japan solely on the general popularity of handhelds.

Right. So what are your thoughts on how WiiU affected the competition in every other region? No? No thoughts? Hmm, maybe that's because the Wii U hasn't affected the competitors AT ALL throughout all the rest of the world.. But Japan...Japan will be MUCH different. /sarcasm



oldschoolfool on 01 January 2014
Turkish said:

Yes. Japan can wait, Sony needs as many units as possible in the West where the war is raging on. Japan continues to move towards mobile gaming, even 3DS is down from last year. It peaked already.


^this.