Slashdot Mirror
Wii Outselling PS3 in Japan
saintory writes "Apparently the Japanese console consumers are sinking their teeth into the modest Wii and are not as interested in the power-packed PS3. In fact, the Wii is outselling Sony's new console by a factor of almost 2:1. The number of PS3s sold into the Japanese market (466,716) falls well short of the million Sony had planned for the end of 2006. 989,118 Wii consoles have been sold in Japan in the same time span. From the article: 'Both Sony and Nintendo are projecting selling 6 million consoles by the end of March. Sony expects to start shipping the PS3 to Europe sometime that month as well. Straggling far behind Sony and Nintendo in the Enterbrain survey was Microsoft's Xbox 360, which had sold 290,467 since its Japan debut in December 2005. Selling machines in large numbers is crucial in the gaming business because it encourages software companies to make more games to play on the machines, which in turn boosts console sales.'"
No, of course not. why?
Because Sony has not made as many PS3s as Nintendo has made Wiis. Rather simple isn't it?
Are we surprised that the 360 is tanking? nope, because it doesn't apeal to the japanese market (and it does not have the fanbase that Nintendo and Sony have).
The real question is how will the number end up once sony gets production going at a decent speed?
Other peopel have pointed out (and after research I now have to agree) that the PS3 isn't selling in the USA (if any one wants ot buy a PS3, Circuit City has 60gig versions in stock). Yet is is still a chalange (though not impossible) to buy a Wii despite much higher production levels.
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
How many Xbox 360's have sold in Japan since the PS3 Launch? It was my impression that the 360 just started to grab a market when the Blue Dragon bundle was released. With no real console-selling game out for the PS3 and the price point, I'm curious if Japan will opt for the 360 now.
You are forgetting one important thing:
Sony LOSES money on each PS3 sold, whereas nintendo GAINES money on each Wii sold.
Yes, I know there are games and all that, but still...if it takes selling 2.5 Wii's to match the price of one PS3, and EACH Wii is making a profit while that one PS3 loses money...which one do you think provides a better profit margin?
Net income means jack shit. I don't care if you bring in 2 billion a year if your costs are 4 billion. If my costs are 50,000, and I bring in 75,000, guess what: I have a higher profit margin, which means I have MADE more money than you.
Living With a Nerd
Yeah, Sony did not dominate with the PS or the PS2 because their system was so incredibly powerful compared to the competition. Infact, the PS2 has significantly less hardware than the Xbox or gamecube. They won by having tons of games, plenty of good exclusives, and the whole DVD player thing helped some too. (To a degree that Blu-ray won't. Seriously. Most people out there are perfectly happy with DVD's for now. VHS sucked, DVD doesn't.)
I'm not really sure where Sony got the idea that their future depends on them cramming all the technology they can find into a plastic cases. I mean, they used to hype the PS2 and the "emotion engine" as being some sort of computing miracle, but I didn't think they actually believed it.
While there are, no doubt, game developers out there that enjoy having lots of hardware out there, most of them also enjoy having lots of money, so their efforts are generally going to go where the market is.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
This wont help either, the average european household has way less money to spend than the average US one.
Now add to that that the month of march is a total dead one saleswise, no big holidays, christmas money is spent, and vacation money far off.
This console will sink in europe heavier than a stone, although Europe-EU is the biggest
market worldwide games salewise.
Not being able to ship during christmas in europe although the console is the most expensive one overy here might be the final death knell into the PS3 introduction.
Typical Sony arrogance, ignoring the biggest market saleswise currently (you have to count the EU as a whole and add the non EU countries), at the biggest and pretty much only chance to get it into the households before Christmas 2007, just in hope people will buy it anyway. Face it Sony
you already have a lousy reputation over here, and also
have in mind we have to pay around 900 Dollars for the console, at less average income and less free money to spend.
Because the XBox simply doesn't have the kinds of games that Japanese gamers traditionally enjoy. That is, Japanese style RPGs such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, and dating sim style games.
The XBox software is very American, which isn't a bad thing at all, but it does mean that it doesn't sell well in Japan.
That said, I wouldn't be surprised at all for things to change drastically this console generation. Whereas the Xbox had virtually no J-RPGs, the 360 is getting more love from developers. The same goes for Nintendo and the Wii, the new darling of the industry. Plus, multi-platform games, in general, are becoming more and more common (it makes business sense to do so, since game development costs are skyrocketing). So games that were typically Sony-exclusive may end up being on the 360 and Wii as well. As I've said before, that's great for gamers.
-- jchenx
Larger inventory + more demand than inventory = sold out, but more units sold
Smaller inventory + more demand than inventory = sold out, but fewer units sold
Fun games + lower price point = Happy customers that are irrelevant to any kind of sales metrics at the moment.
Meaning no disrespect to Sony or Nintendo, or video game journalists in general, but it's kind of moronic to compare sales of the two when both of these companies are selling as many as they can make.
If there is more demand for the Wii, no one can say how much. Would they sell 10 times as many if that many units were available? If there was actually more demand for the PS3, nobody could prove it. Does the fact that the Xbox sold 8 million units mean it has happier customers, more fun games, or a lower price point? Maybe it just has have high availability and a year head start.
Wake me up when Sony and Nintendo have enough inventory to satisfy demand for any walk-in customer. If that was true now, this story would actually be interesting.
BTW, if you have inventory statistics, thank you very much for posting them. They would be quite useful. If you don't, please don't bother telling me all about that WalMart near your house that has 5 units on the shelf. It says nothing about inventories in general. It is irrelevant.
TW
Um, the fact that the PS3 is no longer selling out (at least here in the States) should be a telling factor.
And maybe I should tell you about the two WalMarts, Target, Best Buy, Circuit City, Gamestop, and EB Games, all of which have PS3 stock. (Not to mention nearby (but inconvenient) Toys R Us stores).
Sony does have enough supply to fulfill demand now. Demand is just really low.
My twitter
More to the point, you can't judge Sony's success with the PS2 based on a simple list of effects. There were many reasons the PS2 was as successful as it was, including their excellent marketing to the general public. To say it was the games or the built in DVD player or anyone one of those things misses the point that it was an entire package plus the market recognition they built in the previous generation, which they still have to this day. Heck you can't even down play the brand name. "PlayStation" just sounds like a game system, unlike "XBox" or "Wii" which could really be anything. I'm not trying to support sony or anything, as I think the Wii is looking like it has lots of potential, just saying that there were hundreds or more factors in Sony's previous success.
Remember, I'm no Sony fanboy.
The words say no, but the painfully tortured logic is telling me YES!
Let's stop posting these worthless articles for the sake of the horde ok?
We need articles like this because it is immensely gratifying to kick Sony while they're down. The rootkit will not be forgotten or forgiven.
People need to keep in mind the Wii costs less than half of the PS3's hefty price tag. Of course more people are going to buy Wiis right now, it's cheaper. Not to say that the Wii's awesomeness isn't playing a big role, but keep in mind that Nintendo's biggest problem is finding 3rd party developers who make worthwhile games. The gamecube was a great system, but they had very few must-have games that were not from Nintendo. No matter how good the Wii is, good third party dev support is what wins console wars.
Before we all doom the PS3, let's wait until some of the big-name PS3 games come out later this year. Sony already knew they were going to take a loss at the outset of the PS3 market, so I think they're taking the long view. In Japan, when Final Fantasy XIII comes out, there is going to be a rabid fanbase that will purchase the console for that game alone. Others may hold off, but given the other big properties that will shortly follow, how can anyone avoid the PS3's gravity?
Also factor in the other part of the market... Blu-rays absolutely rock on a HDTV. LG is coming out with a dual-mode player, which means that given the choice, the consumer can be easily swayed towards Blu-ray simply by flooding (true) advertisements about the media's technical superiority. If Blu-ray pulls ahead, then the PS3 becomes much more attractive.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
This is good information from several different sources, but I liked the last one the best. First, it had a whole inventory sheet from quite a few Best Buy's, which suggests a trend, unlike the rest of the articles which are purely "I saw one here and there" pieces. But second, it points out that availability is spotty, with some states and cites having them and others not.
This is why anecdotal evidence is so problematic. If it's raining at my house and ten of my pal's houses across the country, it says nothing about your chances of having rain. It does not mean we're headed for a flood. Anecdotal info does have it's uses, but people at Slashdot have been claiming it as "proof." These people are no better than diet pill salesman, who will give you testimonial after testimonial, but it turns out a whole lot of the users still stay fat.
Should Sony have some concern based on this? You bet. Does it mean sales figures accurately reflect a market where supply is flexible enough to meat demand? Hell no. If lots of people in lots of places have trouble getting it at retail, it doesn't really matter if it's sitting on the shelf elsewhere. It may not be out of stock in general, but it's very significantly supply constricted which will greatly affect sales figures.
There's one more thing to remember. If you're a Wii fan and you like seeing good Wii numbers, consider that these are not the best you can get. If Sony does have a full supply and if Nintendo is still choked by demand, it could mean that the potential difference in PS3 and Wii sales is much higher than this story suggests. Stories that suggest sales in the current environment bare any resemblance to full supply sales are hurting you as much as the Sony fan.
TW
It's almost as if demand is elastic with respect to price! How strange! I wonder if they have a field of study devoted to predicting that kind of bizarre outcome.
You will notice I said the PS2 is slightly under powered graphically when compared to it's competitors. I say slightly because it doesn't have hardware accelerated bump mapping and requires developers to utilize it's pixel pipeline more than the usual architectures do. But the PS2 has always had better polygon counts (as in Jak 3) and lighting effects (Shadow of the Colossus) and some of the prettiest games in existence (Okami, and GT4 come to mind). As usual graphic capability is very subject and I am willing to concede a slight lead to the PS2s competitors. Interestingly enough it is the PS2s lack of graphical prowess that shows of the power of the core CPU (including it's associated Vector Units). The General Purpose VUs in the PS2 are capable on handling more calculations than any of the other systems, making it capable of better AI and other, no graphical, system logic (I'm not saying that the games utilize this, just a potential) while also picking up the slack where normally a GPU would be working. This effectively gives the developer a heck of a lot more flexibility as to where they want to apply the systems processes (yes it is possible to use a GPU for general purpose computing but it is more difficult and rarely done).
But all of this is completely off topic and I expect it to be modified as so. I'm just trying to get people to stop believing that particular fallacy. (And yes I prefere higher poly counts to texture maps since I always feel they more accurately represent the world they are emulating. texture maps are more of a facade than anything substantial.)
My friend has a Wii and I've played several times, and this is what I told him regarding the PS3 vs Wii debate (full disclosure: I've never played a PS3):
When I first played a games console, oh, back in the halcyon days of 1992 or so, it was a Sega Mega Drive (aka "Genesis" in the US). It was a whole new experience for me, being able to interact with an onscreen character using a handheld controller. It was a new world and I loved it and was introduced to a whole wealth of other systems.
Fastforward 13 years and nothing has really changed. Games look better, are more imaginative and offer me more satisfying results than grabbing rings and power-ups. But the gaming concept itself is still pretty much the same. We all laze around on couches, plugged into the console, and gradually fall asleep in marathon gaming sessions.
2006: enter the Wii (no pun). I was a little skeptical after seeing the ads and the less-than-impressive graphics, but being there when my friend first plugged his Wii in was like being transported back to when I was 6 again. I was genuinely excited and amused playing WiiSports, with the new concept the controller had brought to my gaming.
The PS3 might look prettier and have more power. It even plays DVDs and other things I have no interest in. But what it doesn't have is a revolutionary new design that's been the most innovative thing (at least, in my personal gaming history) since I first started playing consoles. The Wii has got me up off the couch and really interacting with my games, while the PS3, however real it may look compared to the Wii's bobble-headed "Miis", is just another couch-sitting epic.
Are you telling me that Fun>Graphics?
I'm sure nobody's had that epiphany before!
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.