Japanese hardware sales, 14 August - 20 August: supreme bias edition

by Ludwig Kietzmann { Aug 25th 2006 at 4:35PM }

Much like a used car purchased from a licentious and overbearing salesman, people often come with their own set of inherent, sometimes unpredictable quirks and predilections. It's part of being human and, in most cases, can be kept under control. Unfortunately, that's not how things regularly work in the realms of video games, internet communication and poorly constructed vehicle metaphors.

Some people are driven mad by the desire to travel down the road of their favorite console manufacturer, logic chicanes and reality potholes blissfully ignored in pursuit of victory over those driving in the opposite direction (or in the case of the Wii, avoiding the road entirely and taking to the sky in a Da Vincian flying contraption). This week, we ponder what it would be like if such a person wrote Joystiq's weekly Japanese sales recap.

The ranking, according to number of units sold:

- DS Lite: 74,495 122,224 (62.13%)
- PSP: 41,535

246 (0.60%)
- PS2: 26,833

286 (1.08%)
- GBA SP: 3,823

772 (25.30%)
- Game Boy Micro: 2,266

235 (11.57%)
- Xbox 360: 1,493

289 (24.00%)
- Gamecube: 922 18 (1.91%)
- DS Phat: 712 222 (23.77%)
- GBA: 20 3 (13.04%)
- Xbox: 7

1 (16.67%)

The PlayStation persuader: As you can see, dear readers, the PSP is well on its way to the top of the charts. The DS Lite takes the biggest plunge this week, no doubt caused by people realizing that they'd rather play a full game on the PSP's big screen than half a game on two, tiny screens. Sure, "41,535" is technically a smaller number than "74,495" but a huge number is a huge number. And nobody does huge numbers like Sony.

The Microsoft minion: At least the Xbox is consistent. It has always remained in the prestigious top 10, talking directly to a confident and highbrow society within Japan. The Xbox 360 doesn't need to pander to the masses with mundane and "appealing" games. Not everyone can understand the significance of shooting from a first-person, nay, first-mersive experience.

The Nintendo neophyte: Has this thing changed yet? No. The DS Lite is still outselling everything ever made and proving once again that innovation is the key to success. Indeed, redesigning the DS Phat and releasing New Super Mario Bros. was the one-two punch of freshness that gave the competition a bloody nose.

The N-Gage encapsulant: Uh ... we'll let our commenters discuss these numbers.

[Source: Media Create. Image: Daily Dinosaur Comics. Trying: too hard.]

Tags: DS Phat, DsPhat, Hardware charts, HardwareCharts, Japan, Japanese hardware sales, JapaneseHardwareSales, Sales charts, SalesCharts

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jason Wishnov @ Aug 25th 2006 4:45PM

C'mon, Ludwig. You keep making your posts so crazy, I have to go cross-post for you in DS Fanboy. Oh well. ^^

Zero @ Aug 25th 2006 4:52PM

The next sales number roundup should show a spike for the DS Lite, what with all the fuss over Final Fantasy III.

Aran @ Aug 25th 2006 4:54PM

Ha ha, great job Ludwig! :D

It seems Nintendo is trying to stock as many as possible DS units for this week since FFIII was released yesterday. Next week DS numbers will be HUGE, trust me. I predict over 300k DS's sold and 450k or more FFIII's sold. Any other guesses? :)

Some pics and stuff from FFIII release: http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/2006/08/24/103,1156384297,58932,0,0.html

NES @ Aug 25th 2006 4:55PM

who the F*ck doesnt own a ps2 by now why are they still selling. Shouldnt xbox be taking off this list since they arent being produced anymore. I love how the same people come and comment on this every month and say the same thing WOOT!!

greg @ Aug 27th 2006 11:17AM

Like i care what people who made bonzai and super fun happy challenge show are buying weird

Enycma @ Aug 25th 2006 5:05PM

Wow...Who would have thought that a product bearing the word "Lite" or "Light" would sell so well compared to the regular one! **Ba! Dum! Pish!** =0D

josh @ Aug 25th 2006 5:09PM

are the DS Phat and GC still being produced?

and people still buy PS2's for a variety of reasons, I'm sure - younger kids who weren't old enough for one last year (in their parent's eyes) having birthdays, kids moving into the dorms, old ones breaking, people who had gotten a GC or Xbox instead of a ps2 who now decide they have to have guitar hero (or whatever hot game of the moment), etc.

unimental @ Aug 25th 2006 5:12PM

I do realize people have reasons for buying the PS2, but I didn't think there were THAT many reasons.

Every week I am surprised.

Paul P. @ Aug 25th 2006 5:25PM

FFIII sold 330,000 on the first day according to unconfirmed reports. That's 309,000 stand-alones, and 21,000 DS Lite FFIII bundles. I expect their full shipment of 450,000 will be gone by this time next week.

All Your Lost Socks @ Aug 25th 2006 5:33PM

Nice post :) I love that image...
None of this suprises me. I won't really be watching this too closely until the Wii and PS3 pop up on it.

Subnet6 @ Aug 25th 2006 5:52PM

Ludwig,

I can always tell its one of your posts in the first 2 sentences. Kudos to someone who can make even the weekly Japanese sales numbers a post worth reading.

That being said, what did exactly happen to the Lite? Not that the numbers are bad but thats a big drop. Someone mentioned stockpiling for the FFIII launch? Is that for real? Seems odd that they wouldn't just be making more units what with the consistency of the sales numbers. Its not like if they make an extra half million units or so that they aren't going to sell.

Maybe they've temporarily transitioned production to other colors that have not launched yet?

All Your Lost Socks @ Aug 25th 2006 6:05PM

My guess is that so many people already have them, those who don't are going to take a little extra incentive or are waiting for a certain game bundle/price drop. Everyone can't be buying them constantly; there are saturation limits here and there.

Slash @ Aug 25th 2006 6:44PM

The reason the PS2 is still selling a lot is because its known to break very shortly in its life. I guess all the japanese kids just cant give up their Final Fantasy games I - VII whatever the hell many games they've made.

Aran @ Aug 25th 2006 6:54PM

Ok, neogaf has first numbers of FFIII on DS.

The first day sales are... 300,900! :O

I don't know how accurate these numbers are but Jesus Christ that's a huge number for one day. Let's wait and see what the final results for this week will be, but it seems already that my 450k guess is too low. :(

Pal @ Aug 25th 2006 7:03PM

Guitar Hero? No, no! Guitar Hero doesn't EXIST in Japan!

makesevenupyours @ Aug 25th 2006 7:13PM

"14. Guitar Hero? No, no! Guitar Hero doesn't EXIST in Japan!"

good point...

loungemonkey @ Aug 25th 2006 9:14PM

@ #12

I hope that is just a joke. So I guess the 360 is selling so well because it too breaks within a few months for many.

AssemblyLineHuman @ Aug 25th 2006 8:03PM

@15, loungemonkey: To be fair, the Xbox 360 never sold enough in the first place to have massive sales because of replacements. Even if 100% of Xbox 360s sold in Japan were breaking and being replaced weekly, the sales would still be mediocre. Of course, I'm not saying that I believe more than about 2,000-5,000 PS2s sold every week are really replacements, but I also don't have a PS2, so I have no experience with issues that come with them.

Paul Gale @ Aug 25th 2006 8:11PM

This has been the closest that Sony's been to Nintendo in ages in Japan (in terms of overall hardware sold). In fact, Sony has sold for the week of August 14th, 95% of Nintendo's total. Normally, Nintendo outsells Sony by a few to one. It's interesting to see the DS Lite so low, but perhaps that's do to more evenly distributing the handhelds world wide, plus to save some stock up for an insane week after, once Final Fantasy 3 hits (which is has by now). At this rate, Nintendo at the end of the year may have outsold Sony in total, 3:1...but we'll see. That PlayStation 3 vs. Nintendo Wii battle is going to be fantastic.
Paul Gale
1up.com

idioteraser @ Aug 25th 2006 8:29PM

Yeah Nintendo needs to produce more DS lites. The DS phat and gamecube are no longer being produced.

Up the production to five million a month. Japan will easily eat four million of those a month for the next two years.

Night Elve @ Aug 26th 2006 12:31AM

@ 12.

Seriously your comment is an old joke that does not have to anything with the reality.

People always says "PlayStation 2 sells a lot because is known that they got broke so easily" ...

... I don`t know what kind of thing you people do with your PlayStations 2 but mine is still kicking and is 5 years old.

Horus @ Aug 26th 2006 5:26AM

Gotta love those Japanese hardware sales.
Personly it's very interesting for me to read it every week. I actually anticipate it.
Thanks for bringing it, and thanks for the great posots which comes with it.
Is someone familiar with the Japanese lifestyle? How can they afford buying so much every week?
Ludwig, is there gonna be a yearly Japanese hardwere sales? That could be great.

phipscube @ Aug 26th 2006 6:49AM

The mighty DS lite is taking that plunge I predicted. Just as the PStwo did. The Lite is basically what DS should have been from the start. But I think most people buying it are older DS phat users "Upgrading". Its still gonna do well I think and good for it. But sales will even off. The PSP will start to climb again I think too as the games are really starting to shape up for the fall.

Now away from Japan. PSP is still the highest seller in total units sold compared to DS and DS lite combined. only 7 million DS's have been exported from Japan. 12 million PSP have been exported. Sony have sold 1.2 million MORE PSP's in USA than Nintendo DS since their launces.

Basically they are very even sales wise. I'm not trying to be a fanboy or anything, but can we be a bit fairer from now on? The DS AND the PSP are both doing very well overall. I hate seeing PSP get slammed for no good reason.

Ginger_Nathan @ Aug 26th 2006 8:39AM

Actually the figures for total sales (as in products in the hands of customers) at the end of July for the US was 5,563,072 for the DS and 4,874,872 for the PSP (both figures included all sales from launch of each console, and the DS figures include Lite and Phat). I'm not sure where you got that "1.2 million MORE PSP's in USA" :/ Unless of course you're comparing PSP's shipped to the US against the DS sales at retail - but you wouldn't do that what with you being not being a fanboy and being so fair.

idioteraser @ Aug 26th 2006 9:15AM

Bother to actually do some digging. There are seven million unsold psps. Sony considers any electronic produced and shipped from the factory to be sold. It's a very dishonest tactic but they do it since the news media lets them get away with it.

apoc06 @ Aug 26th 2006 10:13AM

in the eyes of sony, a shipped product /is/ sold to retail. items that are shipped to retailers are now sold to the retailer. sony makes their money at this point. now it is up to the retailer to complete the cycle and sell the PSPs to the consumers.

if they have shipped 12 million PSPs, that means that even at this very point [its supposed "dying" days] retailers still have a demand for the device. if the consumers did not have a demand for the device, or if the devices were sitting on shelves in significant numbers, obviously they would request less PSPs to be shipped to them.

at the point of shipping, sales are out of sony's hands for the most part. they list units shipped to reflect the revenue they brought in. thats the only number that stockholders need to care about. no retailer can afford but so much space to store/ stockpile unsold products. so, if shipments plunge, that usually is an indicator in lost sales. if researchers or stockholders wish to chart actual consumer sales more accurately, they usually refer to NPD or Media Create since they are an unbiased third party.

who would you rather believe? direct sales numbers from sony/ nintendo, or an independent third party?

Sponge @ Aug 26th 2006 10:19AM

My PS2 is 5 years old, too. I had 1 problem that I fixed with help from the ScreenSavers(disk-read errors on every brand-new game). I kept it in as best condition, I could two weeks ago it craped out on me. No warning, no other problems, just complete shutdown. I can't play my Katamari or Guitar Hero anymore. Now I just play GC and the 360 while I wait for the Wii.

Sponge @ Aug 26th 2006 10:19AM

Nintendo could fire back by announcing how many units they SHIPPED.

idioteraser @ Aug 26th 2006 10:57AM

apoc06 since it is Sony then retailers don't want to offend them. Also since Sony pays for a lot of store space for their products while Nintendo doesn't Sony gets away with a lot of stuff retailers wouldn't tolerate from other companies.

Why do you think Gamestop still has huge UMD sections even though a number of retailers have stopped stocking them in their stores? It's because retail stores could afford to not take the UMD shelf money.

Also the six-seven million unsold psps quashes rumors of a price cut because those six-seven million units Sony would have to offer a refund to the retailers when the price cut comes in. That is a hell of a lot of money. The Shipped equals Sold crap is something SEGA used to do a lot to show the Saturn was a success but retailers got tired of that crap and refused to stock it.

It should be noted that in Japan you often find stores selling the psp for just a few dollars more then the ds lite or bundling it with five psp games. That is a desperation move to reduce stock. I don't think Sony is actually happy at how the PSP is doing because a number of software developers are voicing their displeasure at them. The DS software development is drastically increasing for example.

Mikey @ Aug 27th 2006 4:32PM

I work in the warehouse of an electronics retailer and I can tell you for a fact that Sony sends us stockpiles of PSPs that never go anywhere. Anytime we sell one it seems like we get 5 on the next truck to replace it. It's ridiculous. Right now we have something like 8 ds lites which is about on par for how many we will sell in a week compared to the 25 or so psps we have stockpiled, of which we sell maybe 2 per week. They ship more to each store to boost their own numbers, and that's a fact. On the other hand, Nintendo for the past couple months has not been able to send enough DS lites. We generally run out and people have to wait for the next shipment. I know from my experience trying to buy a DS lite, it must be similar everywhere (my store and about 6 other stores I tried were all sold out, I eventually bought one at Nintendo World in NYC, as it was the only place I had seen any in stock in weeks.)

pixelator @ Aug 26th 2006 3:27PM

"I work in the warehouse of an electronics retailer and I can tell you for a fact that Sony sends us stockpiles of PSPs that never go anywhere."

25 PSP units isn't "stockpiles."

No argument, the DS is outselling the PSP right now, but as people have said, the PSP has done very well and is neither 'dying' nor 'failing'. The end total worldwide is still amazingly close for Nintendo fans to be claiming the clear 'wiping the floor' victory that they've done since the PSP was outselling the DS.

People (Nintendo fans) fail to remember that 1). the DS had a big head start in Japan (hardware PSP shortages in Dec 04) and USA (DS gained Christmas and launched in the deadzone of March 05). 2). NPD, while a valid trend indicator, doesn't factor some major chain sales. 3). If there were literally millions of PSP units sitting unsold in warehouses, Target, Wal-Mart, EBGames, etc. would STOP ORDERING THEM and the numbers would have dropped off long before now.

Sony won't have to 'offer refunds' to retailers if they drop their pricing. I guess Nintendo had to do that when they dropped the DS price? Retailers aren't faking sales or buying stockpiles of PSP's to 'keep from offending Sony' - that's ridiculous.

Brad Lee @ Aug 26th 2006 2:47PM

I find it interesting that DS Lite took such a huge nosedive this week. I'd like to see an actual graph of the data over a 1/4 of the year, just to see that one week where the sales dropped like a rock for some reason.

@ Ludwig

You're funny. Except for that comment about the N-Gage. That was mean.

...

Okay the N-Gage deserves it, I admit.

Aran @ Aug 26th 2006 3:16PM

@ Brad Lee:

Just wait for next week and all the weeks after that all the way to the holiday season and christmas. DS Lite sells out _every time_ when they get a shipment in Japan. Few of my friends living in Japan report that DS Lite shipments come mostly at saturday morning, and by the saturday noon they are sold out.

This nose dive came because Nintendo tries to get some units to stock because FFIII was released, so the DS Lite demand is going through the roof this week.

I mean think about the situation: Some japanese guy wants his FFIII but he doesn't have DS Lite yet. He goes to a store just to find out that there are no DS Lites left so he doesn't buy the game either. Bad news for Nintendo and bad news for Square-Enix.

That's why there was so little units shipped this week in Japan. DS Lite sold out like every week, but this week's shipment was only 50% of the normal.

Hope you understood, my english is kinda bad. :)

Also, check these out:

http://gonintendo.com/?p=3311

http://ds.ign.com/articles/728/728081p1.html

Brad Lee @ Aug 26th 2006 6:25PM

@ Aran

So DS Lite sold half as much because there was half as many shipped last week? Makes sense. And if the DS Lite actually does spike as much as everyone is saying it will, due to the FFIII launch, I'd be even more interested to see a month or so long chart just to see the huge drop and then the huge recovery the following week.

@ pixelator

I'm not so sure I believe the conspiracy theories of stockpiling PSP units either, but nevertheless I do think it is probable.

For starters, it is quite mysterious that Sony announces 'shipped' units instead of units sold. If there really was very little difference between the two, why wouldn't Sony just announce the actual sales of the console? It doesn't make much sense.

It is a fairly resonable explanation to say Sony is stockpiling units, and paying off retailers to keep accepting the shipments. The reason for that is because of stocks. If Sony admits that they are getting their butts handed to them by Nintendo, then their stock will likely fall because of it. This is something Sony probably can't afford right now with the PS3 launch coming in the near future, since the PS3 is going to cost them so much money.

But then again the whole thing seems too much like a conspiracy theory to me. It probably has some truth to it, but I doubt 5 mil PSPs are being stockpiled right now.

idioteraser @ Aug 26th 2006 6:26PM

Pixelator NPD, Media Create and other groups track the rest of the psp sales. There are six million unsold psps perhaps more.

The reason a refund was not offered on the ds or ds lite is because the merchants aren't overflowing with them. Also because they knew another version was coming in and anticpated a huge sale. Refunds are giving on price cuts when the merchant is overflowing with them and the price cut is guess what forced by overstock. Since the merchants paid for the excess merchandise they are losing money on it by selling it for less so they demand a refund from the manufactorer or send it back for what they paid for if they can.

As for head start not by much and it certaintly doesn't explain the increase to a six DS to one PSP ratio.

DS software sales are killing psp game sales in Japan. In America it is neck and neck. However in Europe DS games are ruling the charts in most countries. Most countries are looking to follow the Japan DS hardware and game sale numbers.

http://www.vgcharts.org/japconscomps.php?name1=PSP&name2=DS&type=0

A headstart doesn't explain six million more units.

http://www.vgcharts.org/usaconscomps.php?name1=PSP&name2=DS&type=0

Europe/Australia other regions is about 4 million more.

Sony said they quote Shipped unquote 20 million units of the psp. Odd how six million are unsold whereas Nintendo has stated they have sold over 21 million DSs. And the numbers do match on the DS sales by independent tracking groups.

Why do you think Reggie pointed that out during E3? It was because Sony was bsing people in their press conferance on how well UMD and PSP sales were. Or are you stating Sony was telling the truth on UMD sales as well?

idioteraser @ Aug 26th 2006 6:28PM

Sony has always used shipped numbers. The thing about trying to protect their stock is true it's dropped by half these past few years. Any news about the PS3 causes it drop to the investors are unhappy. Bad news about the psp could cause a lot further drop in stock price.