I hope Snack World gets localized. Looks interesting.

PS4 not doing well in Japan but that’s understandable on account of home consoles being dead in Japan.

Switch sales are still pretty good considering the lack of big releases apart from Kirby this year yet.

PS4, on the other hand... I can't believe that Sonys stocks are so low that they can't deliver more. Considering the problems between Sony and Amazon in the west, I suspect something else is the reason.

Now this is just speculation or a theory (a game theory!), but possibly Sony tried to cut down on the retailer cut of the sales and they are not allowed to make this public. So they protest by ordering as little as possible from Sony, so that Sony can't do anything against the retailers but on the other hand it results in heavy supply problems for the console and some of their games. In the West, only Amazon seems to play along, but in Japan, all retailers doing so ensures horrible availability on Sony hardware and first party software.

Of course, the reason could be something totally different, but it really starts getting suspicious that something must be afoot with those low supplies.

A business disagreement is more likely than retailers saying "PS4 is not selling enough, let's stop ordering it, but let's keep ordering accessories like the PSVR, and the Vita even if it sells at least twice less". Could also be an issue in the local factories, like they had a couple of years ago because of an earthquake, or some parts procurement issue.

But would't those affect worldwide sales instead of just Japan? And how about the first party software (though that could be Amazon only, but still)?

There are only two reasons for the supply issues that I can think of. Either Sony is seeing a sudden increase in demand in other regions, so they are focusing supply to those. Or Sony is coming out with a slight redesign to cut costs, either to increase profit or in preparation for a price cut.

Issued in the factories could be limited to Japan, when a big earthquake happened a couple of years ago the sales dropped in Japan for a while and they explained that they had production issues. We didn't have a big earthquake for a while, but any local production issue could apparently have consequences in Japan only.

I didn't check the first party games in stores though. Sony first party games aren't that big in Japan anyway...

Well we can assume a sudden increase in demand is not likely in the US based on NPD results for Jan+Feb which have PS4 flat YOY with an extra week included.

I would be surprised to see Europe or other regions getting a large unexpected boost for seemingly no reason.

When is Sony's fiscal earnings report? Perhaps if there is an issue, they will address it then?

Do we know how is the situation in China? Could it be linked?