I think it's more or less a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't scenario. The Yen has suffered massive blows to its valuation, and home consoles have sold poorly in Japan for a long time now. Long-term brand damage is my main point, though, as you guessed. With the Pro pricing news all over the place, Sony are getting a pretty bad reputation, which isn't exactly smart if they want positive momentum going into the next generation. Constantly announcing a slew of remakes doesn't exactly help either (both Horizon: Zero Dawn and Days Gone looks to be getting their own soon). I have no idea what their long-term plan is, I really don't. I haven't see them garner this much negative attention since the release window of the PS3.

Top 30: https://nintendoeverything.com/famitsu-software-sales-9-9-24-9-15-24-top-30/

1. [NSW] Hokkaido Rensa Satsujin: Ohotsuku ni Kiyu – Tsuioku no Ryuuhyou / Namida no Nipopo Ningyou – 20,919 / NEW
2. [PS5] Astro Bot – 8,882 / 21,554
3. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 7,840 / 5,997,783
4. [NSW] Nintendo Switch Sports – 7,069 / 1,422,221
5. [NSW] Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 6,967 / 7,908,719
6. [NSW] Minecraft – 5,713 / 3,631,184
7. [NSW] Powerful Pro Baseball 2024-2025 – 4,750 / 287,959
8. [NSW] Pokemon Scarlet / Violet – 4,215 / 5,411,506
9. [NSW] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 3,943 / 5,583,573
10. [NSW] Ring Fit Adventure – 3,538 / 3,627,657
11. [NSW] Splatoon 3 – 3,131 / 4,364,586
12. [NSW] Super Mario Party – 2,896 / 2,334,898
13. [NSW] Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics – 2,835 / 1,327,096
14. [PS5] Gundam Breaker 4 – 2,825 / 40,609
15. [NSW] Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash – 2,606 / 48,628
16. [NSW] Super Mario Bros. Wonder – 2,501 / 1,927,571
17. [NSW] Momotaro Dentetsu World: Chikyuu wa Kibou de Mawatteru – 2,478 / 1,134,568
18. [PS5] Visions of Mana – 2,427 / 38,647
19. [NSW] Ace Attorney Investigations Collection – 2,151 / 12,653
20. [NSW] Mario Party Superstars – 2,133 / 1,490,816
21. [NSW] Touhou Danmaku Kagura Phantasia Lost – 2,058 / 18,689
22. [NSW] Luigi’s Mansion 3 – 2,009 / 1,030,594
23. [NSW] Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 1,969 / 2,327,221
24. [PS5] Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown – 1,945 / NEW
25. [NSW] Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD – 1,911 / 195,327
26. [NSW] Pikmin 4 – 1,843 / 1,244,919
27. [NSW] Super Mario Odyssey – 1,841 / 2,507,238
28. [NSW] Gundam Breaker 4 – 1,815 / 62,137
29. [NSW] Momotaro Dentetsu: Showa, Heisei, Reiwa mo Teiban – 1,809 / 3,024,462
30. [NSW] Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival – 1,728 / 351,509

Keep going Astro!

Worth keeping in mind that Astrobot is the successor to a demo that was pre-installed in people's PS5. I think it's expected it would have an abnormally high digital ratio. Hence in the UK it sold 50% more digital copies then Ratchet and clank and 20% more in digital+physical.

If it can reach 100k LT in Japanese retail that'd be a great achievement imo and bode for a strong 200k total. Can people think of the last non Nintendo platformer to pass 100k in physical?

Truly is the end for both the PS5 and Xbox series in this market. Appart from holidays, I really don't know how they'll be able to recuperate any semblance of an audience after increasing their prices to obscene levels.

Yeah at this point, one has to wonder if PS5 is doomed to sell less than PS4 in Japan.
For a while there it looked like it was going to break the curse of PS consoles each selling worse than the last since PS2, but the price hike seems to have shot out its tyres.

Wasn't price hike in japan for the PS5 before too ? And it returned to its baseline. So this is maybe a moment thing now, and it can return to it's 30k baseline after a few weeks ?

Back then, the PS5 was supply-limited. Demand still decreased with that price increase, but not enough to fall below the available supply. That imbalance is gone now, so we can expect sales to respond much more strongly to changes in price, as dictated by the basic Supply/Demand curves.

In other words, unless we can get confirmation of the PS5 being supply-limited in Japan, we can assume that the current sales are an accurate representation of how many people are willing to buy for the current price.