I cannot comment on the cost of games in Japan, but I can say this.

The install base for the PS4 is abysmal in Japan, and while software might sell well in general, it would have to do an unprecedented job of selling consoles to make the Japanese market more relevant. The heavy hitters for Sony in Japan are FFXV and KH3. FFXV has me thinking it's going to flop quite frankly. SquareEnix lost their magic and the project's been in the works for almost a decade now which is almost never a good sign. It'll sell well in Japan, but it won't be as big as you'd expect. Kingdom Hearts 3 may suffer the same effect, but it does have a more rabid fan base that's starved for a true sequel.

I'm guessing FFXV will do well in Japan, but not as well as previous entries, and underperfom internationally. Kingdom Hearts will do good in spite of the series dying sales, because it is part of the main series. Sony will get respectable boost in Japanese sales, but probably won't overtake the Wii U in the foreseeable future.

One thing I think that's worth noting in general is that perennial franchises do not seem to have been affected by the hardware market contraction. Stuff like Monster Hunter on 3DS is selling as much as it ever did on PSP. The Persona 4 remake on Vita has already sold as much (+ digital) as the remake of Persona 3 did on PSP. Games like Mario Kart & Animal Crossing have seen a contraction in sales, but absolutely nothing that would be fatal to those IP's (they still sell extremely well and have time, through legs, to make up the difference).

To me, that shows that the market has simply changed. Many, many gamers have now gone to phones who would've bought a Wii/DS/PSP and possibly PS3 in the last generation. That doesn't mean that the gamers that are left aren't going to buy software. We may just see slight contractions from people who are buying the game on a whim; but I do still believe that the core market is in tact in Japan and buying games.

I just hope that the right combination of games can come along at once for the PS4 and convince the core that the console is worth buying, otherwise it may take a trickle of releases over time to get people on board and that may mean some early casualties which release before the value of the console "clicks" for a lot of people.

Stuff like Final Fantasy/Tales/Resident Evil/Yakuza/Metal Gear Solid/Dynasty Warriors/Gundam/Grand Theft Auto/Call of Duty/Battlefield all of which were PS4-exclusive (or multi-plat with XB1) would migrate the core audience over between them and as a result, I think they'd all see decent sales. Cross-gen; last-gen and a general lack of announcements is hurting that though and as a result, I don't think we're going to see decent sales for a long time from PS4. I think as a piece of hardware it won't sell exceptionally, but I still think software will start selling well on it one day. And I do believe the vast majority of those games will show up exclusively in one form or another - simply because they do the majority of their sales in the west (except for Yakuza/Dynasty Warriors/Gundam, which I think will turn up anyway because they always have).

Where did you get these numbers? How did you apply them over 2014/2013?

19k hardware is not impressive, but the software sure is.

480+thousand US, 350+thousand Japan, and 235+thousand EU is roughly 1.1 million. So you dont think Mario Kart 8 could nt get 100 thousand  plus in downloads and other regions not tracked here?

480+thousand US, 350+thousand Japan, and 235+thousand EU is roughly 1.1 million. So you dont think Mario Kart 8 could nt get 100 thousand  plus in downloads and other regions not tracked here?

Mario Kart 8 has gone full viral. It'll now most likely have decent legs which will translate to a higher baseline going forward. Believe!

Media Create back 30:

WiiU is second this week, no one can deny its move units, sure its yet to be seen if this will continue, but Mario kart 8 has sold WiiU units.

From VGC, the first 21 weeks of each year, as I said in my initial reply to you.