Price isn't an excuse, it's the same as the PS2 was at launch, it's because gamers are becoming more mobile oriented and thus DS & PSP florish.

PS3 just isn't a great system, they're a Final Fantasy away from irrelevancy.

Which PSP are you talking about? The one that just got one of its biggest games of the year, MHP2G? And until we see the next 4 weeks or so, we can't know where it will stabilize at? And it's a good 13 million behind the DS in Japan, it'll never catch it.

Not saying that the PS3 won't get some renewal when FF13 comes around, but will it be enough to help? When the Wii is nearing 9 million at the end of the year, and the PS3 is only at 3.5 million, how much can FF13 really help? And then after that, what? You'll run out of options as many smaller Japanese devs move their games to the Wii, which will cause the PS3 to only have Japanese games from bigger developers, and even some of them are moving franchises over (Monster Hunter 3). Without these games, price won't help.

woah i come back frm school to see 111 replies.

It`s hard to say. Wii outsell PS3 in Japan after 16 month now only by 3.7 mln., and Wii has casual stuff like Wii sport/Wii play/Wii fit + SMG, SSBB, Zelda and Wii Kart next week. Wii practically had all Big games, while PS3 only HSG5 and GT5P, which is not even full GT game, maybe DMC4. That`s all.

Let`s back to that question after MGS4, GT5, RE5, FFXIII releases, ok? :) Somehow i`m more optimistic on PS3 sales in Japan after these games will be released. Moreover, 40-50k for Wii in Japan i wouldn`t call impressive either. =]

PSP has ONE Monster Hunter. PS3 will have much MORE BIG games - mln. sellers in Japan. =)

 NES. The nes was actually using 70s technology in the 80s. How bout ps1. The ps1 imo wasn't too much of an improvement over the nes. It is probably equivalent to the wii's improvement over the original xbox. 

Although I know it's plain useless to debate with you I'll try one more time:

a) PS3 has seen the release of games that were in the top of PS2 selling list (Winning Eleven, Dynasty Warriors and Minna no Golf are good for 8 of the top 20 PS2 games) and it has done close to nothing for PS3. I didn't even talk about GT5P, because if we count that as a GT game, it will mean that 1/2 of the series in the top 20 PS2 have seen a release in Japan. The #1 on that list will come to DS.

b) If MGS4 sells more than a million in Japan it will be an amazing achievement. Though 1 million games can at highest cause a 300.000 console boost, so not enough. It will also be extremely frontloaded. 

c) Besides GT5 and FF13 I don't see any Japanese million seller. I'm sure these games will sell well, but it won't even sell the 3.6 million consoles that are between Wii and PS3 now, let alone the gap that will exist once these games arrive. Remember: FF13 most likely won't arrive until April 2009.

d) At the current rate the difference at the end of 2008 will be 3.7 million + 40.000*35 = around 5 million. That's quite a gap. Plus the game announcements for Wii keep rolling in. Another Square game yesterday. You've seen what Monster Hunter does. Tales of Symphonia 2, Fatal Frame 4, Fragile, Mario Kart, Final Fantasy CC, Project O are all coming this year. These are the kind of Japanese games that made PS2 sell so well.

I do see healthy sales for PS3 in the west, but imo it's over for PS3 in Japan, which is quite a blow for people like Zen and Onna (and probably many others) that bought a PS3 for the Japanese support.
 

They were discontinued on January 10th, 2008. 3 months to the day. There are certainly goin to still be pockets of supply for one willing to look. There is also 0 evidence that the 20/60gb are in greater demand than the 40gb. There is evidence of demand, but there is also a much smaller supply. Simply selling for more on Amazon is not evidence of greater 20/60gb demand compared to 40gb. People aren't going to start buying a system in droves for replacing a feature that was previously removed. Given that it is stabalizing around the same numbers as it was last year (this week being a normal lull) I don't see why that would be.

Where is the program that emulates a PS2 purely through software for the PS3? I have never seen it, and it has never been released commercially. The 80gb uses partial software emulation, but the 40gb model lacks the hardware to pull that off. Please keep making up facts though. It makes it easier to prove you wrong.

You discount the Wii's upcoming games on the one hand and then praise Monster Hunter in the other? Not exactly a good move. You pump up RE5, but forget games like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and Tales of Symphonia which both pulled similar numbers last gen. Look up some numbers before you go down the blind fanboy route of saying every big series is popular everywhere. It would be astounding for RE5 to sell more than 500k copies on a single system based on the sales decline of the series in Japan.

Depends on how you define dramatically increase user base. FFXIII will give the PS3 an extremely good one time boost, and a sizeable boost for a couple weeks after (tops) and then trail off into nothing. The sales of those games are extremely front loaded, and the series has been declining in Japan ever since FFVIII. I figure it will do around 200-400k units over the lifetime of the system which is very impressive, but it will be hard to notice on a week to week basis a month after release. GT5 will probably move a lot of consoles every week unless something extremely weird happens. If some actions of a malevovent god causes GT5 to faulter it would be a death knell to the PS3 in the region, but I seriously doubt that would happen.

@BengaBenga,

a) except HSG5, other games like Dynasty warriors and Winning eleven, are just oriented on fan series, and from series to series mostly will sell only to fans, and in reality they are not a BIG AA games.

b) MGS4 will probably sell around 500K first week, and 1 mln. by the end of the year in Japan. If DMC4 - smaller franchise did on ps3/x360 around 300k first week, then MGS4 a BIG AA game will definetely reach 500k first week. =)

c) MGS4, GT5, FFXIII, FFXIIIv  - yeah, not much Japan oriented games for NOW.
BUT http://vgchartz.com/japtotals.php?name=&console=PS2&maker=&disp=American+Name&boxartz=1
as you can see, several BIG franchise were enough for PS2. =)

d) you expect tha WKS, T6, SC4, SH5, LBP, LR will totally have no effect on PS3 sales? And why you expect that Wii will always outsell ps3 by 40k? Maybe ps3 will gain in sales or Wii just drop?
I haven`t seen Monster Hunter doing great on Home console. Other games that you named are no more, then my games listed above in this paragraph.

PS3 will have great support of HD games in Japan, but probably by 2009, it`s needed time to create HD game and money.

@Gnizmo, the games you listed is something like WKS, T6, SC4, SH5, LBP, LR and my bad RE5.
Indeed, only MGS4, GT5 and FFXIII, FFXIIIv + maybe (SO4, KH3) is left for PS3 in 1 year time.
However, Wii has NOTHING that big, maybe pokemon? Actually NOTHING.

@Crazzyman

Monster Hunter 3?