52k at this point in a console's life in japan is insane... it's a reallly great baseline even in the middle of a lifecycle but Switch is doing it even when it's already the best selling console of all time there

It's so sad to see Astro selling so poorly in Japan, but well, Sony is adamant about killing the PS5 there, so yeah...
If Astro was a Switch game it would have easily sold over 500K by now.

How many games have reached that bar now?

There have been dozens of PS5 titles with much bigger launches then Astro, plenty even in the last months like Gundam breaker and even late ports like shin Megami Tensei. The size of install base is not an issue.

It's numbers are merely a reflection of being a new IP that needs to grow organically. Aside from being understocking during its launch week (which means higher digital ratio), it's current trajectory is good. Worry about Astro when it drops out the top 10. 

Also what was the last non Nintendo Switch platformer to open with big numbers?

As far as I know, just these:

• Super Mario Bros.
• Pokemon Red/Blue/Green
• Pokemon Gold/Silver
• New Super Mario Bros.
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons
• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

And New Horizons should become the best-selling game of all time there in a month or so.

I said nothing about the install base.

The problem is the game launching in the exact same moment Sony is making the japanese lose all interest in the PS5.

Also, Nintendo fans love platformers, so the game would have had a vastly bigger audience and exposition there being on the Switch.

Though I don't remember the exact numbers but I'm pretty sure Splatoon on the Wii U of all consoles had a better opening then astro bot

I think the Japanese are simply voting with their wallets in terms of Sony products as playstation has been snuffing them for quite a few years now

I think that's fair the prices for a PS5 are way too high in Japan. The value of currencies have always fluctuated, though rarely it has been reflected in tech prices this much. Playstation doesn't compete in Japan and Europe anymore so people pay more for Playstation consoles in those regions.

Playstations tend to sell less units in those regions due to that. For Japan Switch (2) and PC and perhaps handheld PC's like Steam Deck are the future. For the success of Astro Bot we mainly need to only look to the US, which is the market Sony wants to compete in the hardest. If Astro sells well in the US, it doesn't really matter if it sells less than 100k in its launch month in Japan.

Hmm, I think that's a bit of a reach in terms of making sense of Astro's soft launch. 

Right now MH Wilds for PS5 is No.2 on Amazon JP best sellers 5 months ahead of launch. For sure the price hike is bad for the playstation brand & future hardware sales, but software will sell to the 5m existing users if it's in demand. If you want to make sense of Astro's sales you'd be better off looking to the demand of other 3D platformers that were NOT made by Nintendo.

There are shockingly few success stories. Some titles that did well in the west like spyro & crash trilogy didn't make a splash in JP. Elsewhere 3rd parties are not making a dent or even trying with the genre. One game of note however is It Takes 2

It Takes 2 launched with barely 3k sales on Switch and only had a 40-60% sell through rate during its release week. It's now at 80k in Japan and still charting.

Mourning Astros sales doesn't make sense yet imo & I don't think there's any blame to attribute aside from Sony understocking week 1, but that would of just translated to digital sales. For now, it's showing legs which should be celebrated.

It would naturally do better on Switch in Japan but what game wouldn't lol. Elsewhere it reclaimed the No.1 spot in the UK in its third week.

Splatoon launched with almost 150k in Japan. In fact, it's launch in Japan was bigger than the ones in Europe or the US.

So yeah, Splatoon launched with over 10 times the numbers of Astro Bot if we're only looking at physical sales - but even with digital it's miles above what Astro Bot managed to sell.