Japanese Sales Charts: PlayStation's Road to Nowhere Continues

Those Yo-Kai Watch numbers are utterly ridiculous.

I still can't get over the XB1 numbers. Not even 200? That's pretty pathetic

Hardware sales in general are pretty bad. Clearly Japan is starting to head toward mobile as well. I'd imagine though Vita still doing better in Japan on a monthly basis than it does in the U.S.

Yes there is clearly an issue here, but at least it's not platform specific - hardware sales in Japan are pretty atrocious across the board, at least Sony are still sitting near the top.

Software sales are still pretty disheartening though - 2,847 as the single highest sales for a PS4 game is poor...

I dont know about you but looking at the numbers and comparing those numbers to all other consoles sold in japn, i think its doing pretty good. if the 3DS were selling at 50k-65K and the PS4 only sold 15k. I would say it was pathetic. But the 3DS sold over 21K and the PS4 sold 15k. Thats not bad to be in second place.

Something needs to change in Japan. It's amazing when you compare what is happening here in Europe and America with this gen. Going forward though I can honestly see this (including NX if it's a home console) being the last generation the country has. The PS4 itself launched in Japan after America/Europe and that's going to happen with PS5/next Xbox/next Nintendo after NX. They don't care anymore. Microsoft won't bother there much longer, Nintendo will survive thanks to their handhelds - the 3DS is still well behind the DS thanks to phones/tablets yet still sells like hotcakes - and Sony? I can see them being a small presence, but treating the region, their home region, as an afterthought. If they could crack the handheld market they could really compete with Nintendo in that section of gaming but they've tried twice now and both times they haven't actually understood the market (despite the small but dedicated love the consoles have outside Japan) and won't go a third time.

@Kayoss Difference is the PS4 is just over/under eighteen months old there and the numbers are relatively consistent week after week. They may go up when a big game comes out but then they drop again. The 3DS has been out over four years, each version of the machine is counted separately, and going from how many have sold up until New Year's Day 2015 there have been 160.71m - the Japan population is around 126,999,808 (as of July 2014). That is basically like saying every person in Japan has one, nearly a third has two. And it's still selling. PS4 being second behind 3DS is good for Sony when you take in how the country is falling out of love with console gaming. But it's good in a similar way to finding 50p on the floor when you've lost £100. Microsoft though is like being robbed, beaten up, stripped and then being thrown a penny.

Console sales wise, is it really that bad placing 2nd and 3rd? We all know that handheld gaming is what the consumers in Japan prefer anyways and the 3DS definitely beats the VITA when it comes to having better game selections.

In all honestly I'm usually more surprised by Playstation's American and European sales figures than the Japanese. With just a few noteworthy exclusives till date the PS4 is selling like hotcakes and there is no sign of them slowing down. The reason behind this is really hard to grasp, but it shows gamers aren't as rational as we like to think. When this gen launched the PS4 was the obvious choice and MS really shot themselves in the foot, but since then the One has been ever improving, became cheaper than the PS4 and has arguably more exclusives to attract the masses. Yet month after month we see Sony dominating.

This gives to show how important it is to have a head start and that it's true that you only have 1 chance to make a first impression. Because of the negative sentiments towards the One people are still leaning towards the PS4, but I honestly don't understand why it's selling this fast. In Japan we see the market for home consoles is steadily declining, but whenever PS4 games hit the market that are attractive for a Japanese audience, you see the sales figures go up and whenever there are slow months like these we see low sales. For me it's far easier to explain that a console that doesn't have any attractive exclusive games doesn't sell well, than that same console sells like mad like it does in the West. There is a cheaper alternative, the games aren't that exciting, yet it keeps on selling.

And by now we actually have a pretty decent library, but I remember playing nothing but Trials Fusion and Resogun till Diablo finally came out and for some reason PS4s were sold out everywhere. So the Japanese consumer behavior is far more predictable than ours

Sony's consoles are in second and third so that's not exactly bad, but damn don't they love weird games over there! I seen that yo kai watch game at e3 and thought it was a joke, but it's doing ridiculously well over there!

Japan really love the weirdest games.... It looks like the cultural difference between western and eastern gamers is growing during this generation....

Yes, the PS4 and Vita are in second and third place, but that doesn't really matter when the numbers are utterly dire to begin with.

Japan is in severe economic crisis. The Govt debt is high and they have just increased the sales tax to 8% with an increase to 15% likely.

There is nothing that Sony can do with these problems and they are probably doing well. Big releases will help but the problems aren't isolated to the console market.

@Cowboysfan-22 It's mobile. Japan is mobile. I'd had a 360 & bought mostly Jap games. Still, Xbox never got the attention it deserved. Currently, I own a Wii U & PS4, still I can see the virtues of Xbox1. But not Japan. We are gaijin to 'em.

Considering the huge drought in exciting new PS4 releases, not surprised. FF 15, FF7, KH3 and Persona 5 will help a lot.

All Sony needs are a few exclusive must have games that appeal to the Japanese market. That will make a big difference in sales. Gotta be top notch Japanese games though.

Anyway, Xbox has never sold well in Japan and it still did great with the XB360

Pathetic as usual.

@ShogunRok Hmm, that's probably because they don't any good Japanese games on the PS4 yet and I can't recall any really good Japanese games on the VITA either apart from P4G. Soul Sacrifice was good but its nothing in comparison with Monster Hunter.

@Kellanved I'm sure they will.

Screw em, it's not just Sony that's doing poor everbody is, if they wanna go mobile let them.

Their loss.

Strange how the Ps4 does sell the most, most of the time but it barely charts any software compared to the Wii U.

@ShogunRok These games are as popular as Pokémon and have been for a while. Maybe even more so than Pokémon.

@Cowboysfan-22 Microsoft has literally done nothing trying to sell their consoles in Japan. They don't get the exclusives Japan cares about and anything else is also on PS4/PC. I'm even gonna bet half of those Xboxes sold in Japan were bought by foreigners.

I realize this may be unfair to say but, people say the Vita is dead but at least it's selling more. Heck even the Wii U outsells the Xbox ONE in Japan. They have a lot to learn when it comes to different markets. Like starting over from scratch.