Japanese hardware sales, Sept. 28 - Oct. 4: Orwellian edition

After giving the Japanese game purchasing community a stern talking-to last week, we were refreshed to see such fantastic rebounds for a pair of our contenders in the most recent sales data. However, we were troubled by the causes behind said rebounds -- the PSP spiked due to the launch of the PSP Go, and the Wii got a bump from Wii Fit Plus. In other words, two products similar to their previous iterations, albeit with simple modifiers attached to their monikers. In even more other words, it's straight up Newspeak.

Perhaps the other consoles could have experienced similar boosts with the same treatment. We bet the Doubleplusgood Xbox 360 would garner a huge sales increase, as would the Goodplayful PS3. Though nothing can be done for the Doubleoldful PS2, we're afraid. It's about time Big Brother sent it to the Ministry of Love to be bathed in his ever-shining Tripleplusgood light. Or fed to rats. One of the two.

- DSi: 53,293

10,049 (15.86%)
- PSP: 51,215

33,881 (159.46%)
- PS3: 37,538

2,422 (6.06%)
- Wii: 35,392

23,661 (201.70%)
- DS Lite: 10,661

4,396 (29.20%)
- Xbox 360: 4,244

610 (12.57%)
- PS2: 2,179

168 (7.16%)

[Source: Media Create]

See: The doubleplusgood archives

Reader Comments (75)

Oh come on, just because I did that -one- time at your party, now I can't go anywhere without you bringing it up!!

He also likes to impale you with street signs....

That's what pandas do right?

Next weeks performance?
Just picture a boot stamping on the face of the games industry. FOREVER.

It is great to see the sales figures for Japan but is it possible to post the Sales figures for the USA? I would like to see the differences.

http://www.vgchartz.com/chartsindex.php

HAPPY?

Didn't realize the PS3 was doing that well in the States as well. Nifty.

VGChartz isn't reliable....NEVER post ANY of their shit

interesting

Is PSP Go counted separately, or not? The biggest question right now is whether or not the Go is selling itself or its predecessor instead.

PSPgo is only available in North America and Europe until Nov.

I must admit, even I didn't expect the PS3 to continue beating the Wii this far out from the Slim's launch. Seriously, though, Japan needs to find a new hobby besides buying the DS.

Would anyone agree with the assessment that Microsoft should NOT launch the third generation Xbox in Japan, given the colossal failures of the first two?

One million units in four years is still a failure...

I don't think anyone in Japan trusts Microsoft anymore after a number of big name 360-exclusives went to the PS3 a year later.

Off the top of my head:
-Trusty Bell (aka Eternal Sonata)
-Tales of Vesperia
-Star Ocean 4

I'm pretty sure that I'm missing a number of other games as well. I think the biggest damage was done by the Tales of Vesperia exclusive. The Tales of series is a very big franchise in Japan and its jump to the PS3 already made a few Japanese gamers upset enough to completely trash their ToV 360 game discs.

Anyway, I think the 360 would sell better if Microsoft were to actually open up more first-party development studios all over the world, including Japan, instead of killing off what few first-party studios they currently have:
-FASA is dead (MechWarrior, anyone?)
-Ensemble is dead (Age of Empires, anyone?)
-Bungie is now independent
-Rare is working on avatars, of all things

For a company that prides itself on software, it's particularly ironic that MS doesn't invest in creating more first-party studios.

I think the name Xbox has something to do with the poor sales, though it's definitely not the only factor. The letter X carries a pretty negative connotation over there, and the Xbox has two of them in its name and another in the logo.

Very much no. Microsoft's slowly learning from their mistakes, and slowly building brand presence. Momentum is a very hard thing to build in this business, you either have it, or you don't, but Microsoft is clawing their way up, and can probably hope to have a respectable launch for the NextBox in Japan, with solid 3rd party support from day one

If it's called the Next-Box even I will buy one.

I don't know if this was mentioned, i didnt want to read through all of the comments, but the Wii also got a price cut.

I learned two things from this.
1. There are still people in Japan who don't have PS2s.
2. There are still people in Japan who don't have DSes.

This exactly is one of the reasons I haven’t bought a Kindle yet. I want the e-book I bought to be my property, with all the rights that implies.

The other reason is almost the opposite: The Kindle does not address the needs of voracious readers who can’t afford to buy every book they read. They would like to pay a reasonable fee to rent the book for a while. Like, you know, a library. Our household would have 4 kindles and a rental volume of about 40 books a month if that were renting for a dollar or two were an option. Until then, we’re regulars at the public library we pay for with our taxes.
koffergurt

The Sony Reader has the feature allowing you to borrow a digital copy from your library (if your library supports it). May want to look into that.

Sony, one more price cut please!

suuuuuuuuuuuuure....

in like 3-4 years.....

Or better yet...they can just make the 250GB model $300 next year while phasing out the 120GB model and call that a price cut....

Ha, this is great because I'm reading 1984 for school right now. Otherwise this would of made *zero* sense at all, lol.

In other news, bootlace production is up 200%! Way to go BB!

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Japanese hardware sales, Sept. 28 - Oct. 4: Orwellian edition

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