Week 17 2023 PS5 sales match week 49 2022 PS5 sales YTD.

24 of the top 30 selling games this week were on Switch. The cutoff point was 1364 copies, so only 6 games on PS4/5 sold more than that.

Fair to say a lot of the PS5s being sold from Japanese stores and not staying in the country.

Either that, or people are going digital.

Digital is obviously growing, but it seems unlikely that alone would account for the almost total dearth of physical sales, especially since digital is a thing on Switch as well (not quite to the same extent as PS, but still considerable) where sales remain strong.

Ps plus extra, digital,  enhanced backwards compatibility games, free to play games. I hardly bought any games on ps5 since I subscribed to ps plus extra. Only physical game I bought on ps5 was ratchet and clank

But why aren't they staying in Japan? I thought stock issues isn't a problem anymore

PS4 games aren't selling much either though, and I doubt a whole playerbase of millions decided to suddenly quit physical games cold turkey right when PS5 arrived, especially when the same country shows a continuing strong appetite for physical software on Switch.

Still think the mosty likely explanation is that a lot of Japanese PS5s are ending up in other Asian countries.

What I mean by enhanced backwards compatibility games is people replaying their ps4 games on ps5. It's like remastered but free update. Better fps and resolution.  Also ps plus extra and higher digital are the main reasons why physical are so low. I can only speak for myself since compared to the ps4, I hardly bought any games on ps5 especially physical mainly because of the dozens of games on ps extra I wanted to play and replaying many enhanced ps4 games

Ah, I see. I guess we'll never know but I personally feel like surely export has to be a factor too, as Japan clearly still has some apetite for physical media. There's a lot of countries in Asia that aren't prioritised as highly as Japan in terms of stock but still have many potential customers and the ability to import.

The majority of PS5s being sold are being bought by Japanese people, just like the Switch. Of course there are millions of Grey Market Switch's in China, but that hasn't been proven for the PS5 yet. Sony stated that the active userbase of countries like China were still smaller than countries like France, which if I recall correctly isn't too impressive. Japan is still solidly top 3, just below the UK.

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/ps5-enjoyed-its-best-sales-quarter-yet-reaching-32-million-shipped/

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/ps5-hits-25-million-but-sony-gaming-profits-fall-49-due-to-rising-costs/

Apparently worldwide, digital accounts for 62-63% of quarterly game sales on PS5.
If Japan is similar, that would mean these physical sales are 37-38% of the total sales picture.

On Switch it's close to 50-50.