Still time for the PS3 to kick start itself into action but it does look like its floundering and will continue to do so until something happens.

It needs an image change.

Primary factor? A lack of games, particularly JRPGs, though also a few other popular Japanese franchises. Folklore and Disgaea aren't gonna cut it. The ps2 had FFX, Dark Cloud, MGS4, and GT2 by this point in it's life (in Japan). If FFXIII, MGS4, GT5, and White Knight Story had all already been released, the ps3 would be doing much better.

Isn't MGS4 Metal Gear Solid 4?

The biggest issue with PS3? Games. Games. Games.

Games sell consoles.

GAMES and price

but when I mean games, I mean party games like Wiisport/brawl or games adapted to the casual market like Wiifit/Wiisport

While only mentioning Sony in the title is a bit misleading due to the PSP doing pretty well, I don't see how saying the PS3 is dead in dead in Japan is trolling. Just look at the numbers.

Japan has a history of choosing one console over the rest, and it's pretty obvious by now which one they've picked.

Sony? are you serious?

Have you checked the PSP sales?

PS3 sales are on a respirator though. God damn coma.

Let me mention this, because it's especially true in Japan.

A console only has one chance to make a first impression.

That means, that after a certain amount of time, a console gets a stigma about it with the potential and particularly casual audience.

In America, the Gamecube had the stigma of, "It's a kiddy console."

Of course, Nintendo detractors started that, but were given ammo with the release of the cartoony Wind Waker, which was the downfall of the Gamecube from second place WW last gen, imo.

If the PS3 has developed the stigma in Japan of "having no games" or "is too expensive" like it did early on in America, it will be much harder for it to break that stigma in the more traditional and less changing Japanese society than it would for it to do so in America.

That said, the PS3 is still suffering from that stigma to an extent, even in America, but much less so in Europe, where the "has no games" stigma never really developed or caught on.

In other words, the PS3 has been stigmized with the casual audience, in Japan, I feel. An image change, such as a new SKU and new advertising campaign, concentrating on price, and a price cut could certainly do the job, but individual games along won't do anything to help the commercial success of a stigmized console, just ask the Gamecube in Japan, or the Xbox 360, I feel this is a certainty, and though I might only be a "wanna-be" analyist myself, I do feel that I can think and reason just as well as Patcher, and I think that stigmatization is a valid concern for any company, and certainly should be even more so, in Japan.

For me, the PS3's failure stems from one thing, and that is the continued success of the DS and the PS2, which pull all of the JRPG support from the console. I myself connect in my head, the Playstation brand with great JRPG and SRPG's, from the past. FFVIII, Final Fantasy Tactics, FFXII, Tales of the Abyss. There are too many to name. My PS3 has none, and that is a terrible shame. Now I hear Persona 4 is a PS2 game?

Sony owes its PS3 success to Kojima and Square Enix, because without the promise of Metal Gear Solid, and Final Fantasy XIII, I believe the larger PS3 fanbase would be selling off their systems.

A lot of the PS3 fanboys on this site would have you believe that we bought our systems to play games like Uncharted, but that's just a lie. It's all we got for the PS3. If that game came out on the PS2, I wouldn't give it a second look, and I view myself as a casual Sony fan and the quintesential PS2 owner. We bought this thing for Japanese support. We expect to get it sooner or later, or we would have given up by now. Things much change for the PS3 in Japan, and Sony knows it. I mean, if I know it, Sony knows it, I'm sure.

The PS2 dying right now, however much I hate to say it, would be great for the DS, the PSP, the Wii and the PS3. It's not necessarily the sheer amount of titles still being produced for them, but rather, its the niche' titles that are being taken away from the PS3, like Atlier Iris, or Person 4.

I think Square Enix could be the PS3's white horse, but lets hope its not too late for the Japanese audience, and we can be assured that it won't be to late for the Japanese loving audiences like ourselves.

You might think I'm a PS3 hater, but I've never said I've given up on the system. I just say that it has its flaws just like the Wii, particularly in software library, and shouldn't be thought of as superior. It could have a bright future. Now it's up to Sony. Will they help it down its path? Will they destory it for fast profit, or protect it for the future profit potential? Who knows with that company, honestly. They have never had what I would call, perceptive management.

 Oops.  Meant MGS2, hehe.

Thanks for pointing it out. ^^