PS3 tops five million consoles sold in Japan

by David Hinkle on Apr 13th 2010 2:00PM

In this post-Modern Warfare 2 world, a number like five million may seem insignificant -- even laughable, to some. But hey, don't knock the PS3's latest accomplishment of selling 5,001,598 consoles in Japan.

Famitsu brings us the news, along with the top-selling games on the platform so far: Final Fantasy XIII is first with 1,883,828 units, Metal Gear Solid 4 takes second with 706,461 and Yakuza 4 -- which was just released a few weeks ago -- comes in third, selling an impressive 526,093 copies so far. Gosh, the only thing that's missing is a Dragon Quest.

[Via Andriasang]

Source

Tags: final-fantasy, final-fantasy-xiii, japan, kojima, kojima-productions, konami, metal-gear-solid, metal-gear-solid-4, Metal-Gear-Solid-4-Guns-of-the-Patriots, mgs4, rpg, Ryu-ga-Gotoku-4, sales, sega, square-enix, Yakuza-4

Reader Comments (59)

after all this time???

That's outselling the 360 5:1.

The Japanese console market is diminished. They prefer handhelds these days.

shows how small of a market Japan is. really, if it's about winning the console wars (which is a lame goal already), you have to focus on the US and Europe.

Yay for you, now make v3.21 stop bricking consoles, Sony, dangit.

my 2 units are fine....

Great for you buddy, I wouldn't care if it hadn't been two weeks so far it goes unaided. Meh.

Mine's fine too.

Mine as well. Was it just bad timing? Could just be that yours picked that time to bite the dust.

Nope, it's actually a widespread problem among non-slim PS3s:

http://boardsus.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-3-Updates/Users-with-3-21-technical-problems/td-p/45470549

Thanks for the downvotes though. I'm not declaring war on Sony, it's just a thing that's gotta be fixed.

My original 60GB and my parents' slim are fine. Everyone uses good surge protectors (not the cheap strips) right? I do know someone who has his died during a thunderstorm.

No problems with my launch console, either.

If I had a nickel for every time one of these blogs complained about firmware update... I've never had a problem with any of them.

Oh look, the majority of people have have fully functional PS3s.That must mean I'm WRONG about the fact that mine freezes up when I download the new firmware. Gosh darn, you sure showed me.

@Mike:

My PS3 Slim is fine, but take it from my personal account that firmware CAN screw a console up. My unmodded Wii bricked from a firmware update a few months back. Pain in the @ss having to d/l all my games again.

Mines fine too...

(Also, just want to spam his box)

@Chilly Willy

Yeah, Slims are fine, I've got the post-launch 80 GB. Oh well. Everything works fine except for the online functions.

total? seriously? wow, my knowledge of the size of japan's population could use some refreshing.

so based on this, the xbox 360 has probably hit what...50k, 100k? i don't even know why they try there, to be honest.

Hey you don't know unless you try right? I mean yeah the original Xbox was a huge failure over there, but the 360 had some solid sales (specifically around the release of Tales and Star Ocean 4).

Microsoft is slowly penetrating the market.

And yes I know that's what she said.

They're a little over one million.

Of course, the only console they usually outsell is the PS2...well, and the Go, but nobody cares about that.

Japan is composed of a bunch of japanese fanboys. That is why the 360 hasn't been so popular there.

Yeah, and it had nothing to do with unreliable hardware, and lack of targeted marketing, and the extremely poor performance of the original Xbox in Japan. No, it's because they're fanboys.

Always them damn fanboys.

Japan is packed with Japanese?! SOMEONE GET TMZ ON THE PHONE!

@Dr. Blight
Ugh, weren't you guys over that like 3 years ago?

@Sgt. Tea Bag
BUT THEY TOOK MY JOB!

Over what? The unreliable hardware bit?

I just had to buy a new Elite in December because my Pro was dying. Microsoft's one-billion-dollar internal RRoD fund ran dry mid-2009. So no, we're not over it.

"Japan is full of Japanese fan boys"... wow.

You got special tests in school, didn't you?

@tomlinson731
I think your sarcasm detector is broken.

Screw you guys, I'm going home to play my PS2.

Hm, I have a feeling the Japanese just aren't into the Macho Rambo thing that Gears and Halo present :/ Just looking at the sort of games they play. Its just a hunch.

@Dr. 32X

The hardware issues don't seem to stop it from being successful elsewhere so that's a none issue. The 360 also had more Japanese targeted games for a long time. They may not have been AAA titles but Lost Odyssey should have done way better there. That leaves marketing, I really don't see what the other companies are doing in marketing that is so great.

Whos perception of 'Japanese Taregted' is that? American devs? Or Japanese Devs? Lost Odyssey was an okay game in my opionion, but not enough to warrant the success of 360 in Japan, nor was Blue Dragon.

PS3 and Wii have exclusive Japanese games that you won't hear about over in America or here in England, and those are the games that are popular, amongst the likes of Pro Evo, cutesy games, Monster Hunter, Pokemon and various others, not to mention that 360 over there has little or nothing the PS3 doesnt have that Japanese enjoy playing, so those that already have a Wii or PS3 find no reason to buy a 360, especially when they are nt interested in the games that come with it. Then you have the likes of MGS4 on PS3 and FF13 exclusive to PS3 there, can you really blame them?

Personally, all this fuss about what Micro has done to appeal to Japanese, I honestly find little to be convinced that there was any effort to say. You are comparing a console that was made in the country for the country and everyone else against one that came in from the other side of the world, if the Japanese are going to like anything, undoubtedly it would be their own before anything else.

The PS3 is more "high-tech" than the 360 and that is something that can be easily translated to more sales in Japan seeing how the Japanese market is known to cater more towards high/cutting edge technology.

Mystery solved.

Is it me or have people forgotten what the purpose of a joke is, to make people laugh? Except noone is laughing, so there's a small possibility that the joke was crap to begin with of which point, the 'joker' should still be voted down for telling rubbish jokes. This would be the fourth time in the last two days someone has gotten voted down for saying something silly and claimed it to be a joke ¬_¬. I have another hunch, maybe people are using it to hide the fact what they said was rather embarrasing. Hmm.

So help me, Spunky Monkey. So help me.

Put some monster hunter and gundam in the same game and make it ps3 only, that should get you another million easily.

Two Japanese kids playing the HighFiveJesus game:

Kid One: Holy crap! That's a big ass beast coming after you...run!!!

Kid Two: Don't worry, I recently upgraded my mech. That beast is harmless now.

Unless the Tigrex is in fact a high tech Mechatigrex

Oh.

"Hooray for me"? Haha. That got really bastardized.

Yes, it retranslates back into English more like "Banzai for my sake!" I think "Watashi ni omedetou!" may have worked better (but I'm not a native speaker, so maybe that's awkward, too). Heck, maybe just plain "Watashi banzai!"

Great job!

I was thinking Japan had way more, go figure. I'm sure Sony's happy with the giant success of the slim and excellent exclusives. I know I am.

At this rate i would say it's uncertain that a console Dragon Quest will hit this generation. The rate X is going, it'll miss Wii 2 launch...

”万歳私のために"?
Fail Japanese.

xP

This is interesting for investors because China, India, and a few other Asian countries represent the biggest potential for market growth. Sony's PS3 could wind up being part of that, and having an easier time than the 360, for a variety of reasons.

Many people consider the MiniDisc to be a failed format, but it was actually a success financially because of this part of the world. Since the PS3 is more resistant to piracy, its penetration in this market is actually profit amplified versus the penetration of the other Playstations (all of them), and xboxes.

Japan is falling so far behind. Soon their relevance will be gone. Soon.

I just think that what used to be Japanese dominated has slowly become western dominated, the Japanese aren't particularly interested in western type games, and Japanese devs are chosing to go westernized more these days. So as they become more westernized, the Japanese just find less reason to play those games any more. I wouldn't say they were becoming irrelevant though, just substantially lessened. Maybe there will be game developers who focus on the Japanese market exclusivly. Its not as if they would loose out, Monster Hunter on PSP sold better in Japan then lots of console games on a worldwide basis. So there is still money to be made. I wouldn't want Japanese style games to fizzle out regardless, I like a bit of difference.

It's not that they're falling behind, they just aren't interested in console gaming anymore. The vast majority of Japanese gamers play hand-held games on their phones or on the DS.

While the amount of console gamers has gone down, I wouldn't call Japan irrelevant... especially since all consoles and handhelds except for one is from Japan. If it wasn't for them, we'd only have Xbox, and honestly, I'd probably all but stop buying modern games if it came to that.

I like how everyone cited Final Fantasy XIII as it was going to be a failure because of its lack of sales in Japan. Maybe they printed too many copies, but I'm pretty sure having a 2/5 attach rate is nothing to scoff at.

I never said it would. :P

It's just that people who are tired of JRPGs (who shouldn't be playing them in the first place) used misleading information to justify their own non-interest in a genre.

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PS3 tops five million consoles sold in Japan

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