The bolded is a huge leap in logic though. If demand outstrips supply, and 10million people are trying to get a device that only ships 220k units per week, then of course the average consumer will struggle to find it regardless of how hard they try. The question is how much of that limited 220k supply is actually reaching consumers each week?

A quick search shows only 2000 PS5's listed on eBay atm. Anecdotal evidence of failing to get a console is not evidence of a "large chunk" of sales going to scalpers and assuming so is not actually logical unless there is more specific data to back that claim.  

I'm taking jabs at Nintendo fans? Is that because I'm suggesting that PS5 digital sales are higher than retail sales in Japan? A "baseless claim" I made that is supported by Sony financial reports that Nintendo fans are arguing against? There was literally only one Nintendo fan in this thread that replied to me that accepted a reasonable assertion I made about digital sales while actually offering insight. 

Have you considered the demand for the PS5 is extremely high? We have social media metrics before launch that gave us an indication about how much interest there was in the PS5. We had Sony themselves talk about how PS5's pre orders in a day shattered the amount of pre orders the PS4 had in weeks. We know Playstation related tweets/posts broke industry records for social media interaction. The reasons people are buying PS5's for thousands of dollars is because of the fever pitch demand! Scalping is an issue, but we also have millions of people trying to buy a PS5, so its not as clear cut as you're making it seem, definitely not clear cut enough to claim a large chunk is being bought by scalpers. There are other factors like the Dualsense being the top selling accessory since launch, the PS5 version of Miles Morales charting in the top 5 in NA/UK every month since launch, or even the PS5 having the bigger cut from cross platform releases like Hitman 3 and RE8. 

Again, I never denied the issue of scalping, I just don't think its as big an issue that many make it seem, especially when you consider the amount of demand that the PS5 has. Personally, I know a few people on my PSN friends lists that are gaming on a PS5, I know a few people on social media that have a PS5 & I know a close friend that recently got a PS5 from a massive drop. 

What's the timeframe for those PS4 physical sales? 

Also, I don't know how many times I have to say this for you to understand, but the point of adding digital sales is to show that the PS5 software sales in Japan aren't as dire as the physical market may indicate, especially in tandem with the PS5 that is selling faster than the PS4. That would put Demon's Souls and Miles Morales over 100K+ bare minimum. It could be higher (150K+) depending on the digital split which would put it above the PS4's top selling title in Japan for 2014, MGS:GZ. 

Even with a generous 50% digital for Returnal in Japan we'd be looking at 13K sales at launch, even if we apply 50% digital for all PS5 games it will still be 1/3 of physical sales on the PS4 launch aligned in Japan. The situation with software sales on the PS5 in Japan is such that at this moment that YoY we would be looking at a decline from 6 million software sales during FY 2021 year to something around 1 million for FY 2022 unless some major games get announced. Resident Evil: Village, Scarlet Nexus, Tails of Arise, FFVII Remake Integrate are the biggest games launching until September and combined I think they will struggle to clear 500K.

Resident Evil:Village's PS5 version is already outside the Top 30 on Amazon.co.jp, and I'm expecting no more than 30K to 40K sales at launch. This means that it's launch will be closer to Resident Evil: Revelations 2 which launched at 40.749 on the PS4 and 73.074 on the PS3. And we are comparing a spin-off to a mainline entry 

Quote for the argument, around the same time.

Considering the amount of pushback I got for suggesting digital sales are higher than retail sales on the Playstation platform, which is supported by Sony financial reports, that is being argued against by mainly Nintendo fans (at least in this thread), makes me want to ask you all the same thing. Could my initial post have been better? Sure. But what's the point if users in this thread are arguing against official data anyway? 

That 80% digital split is for Q4 of FY20 for the PS4/PS5, the digital split for FY20 for the PS4/5 is 65%, I could post the link again but many of you won't even bother to click it lol.

This is a good comparison. Even with a much higher digital ratio the PS5 sales figures would be a big decline compared to PS4s. Such a tiny attachment rate just doesn't seem realistic for a new platform, so unless one of the summer releases can break the spell, its only natural to assume that fair number of those Japanese PS5s are being imported elsewhere. Not long til we have RE8's sales to help inform the picture.

So the 80% digital ratio is WW. In Japan it is most likely lower. Adding in digital only software it lowers the average digital share of boxed games.

60% digital for boxed games would result in less than one purchased game per console. So higher digital than physical wouldn't change much, since it would stay at the fact, that software sales are lower than ever before.

I just found a NeoGaf thread where a post showed Returnal being #1 in Japan in April on the Playstation store. So there's that.

I haven't been around here in a long time. It's been a lot of years since I posted on this site but I had to come back and say how happy and how proud I am to see a Nintendo completely and totally dominating the whole entire video game industry from continent to continent. I hope all of us Nintendo fans are enjoying this running streak that Nintendo is currently enjoying. And I hope it lasts for many more years to come

But even with digital sales outselling physical ones 2:1 there still wouldn't be enough games sold to get to a ratio of just 1 game per console, which is abysmal no matter which way you try to turn it. It would need over 70% of the software sales to be digital in Japan just to break even with the hardware sales, which is still a pretty tall order in a country which values it's physical games much more than most other countries do.

The only way to know more would be if there's a regional split in the software earnings in Sony's latest financial report. Does anybody knows if that's specified and could get a link to verify?