If Japan is any indication, buyers worldwide are avoiding PlayStation consoles. Following the latest PS5 and PS5 Pro price increase, the systems experienced a dramatic decline in weekly sales. With the Xbox Series X making up ground, only the region-locked digital option remains appealing.
The Famitsu data includes several days before the unwelcome announcement. Even so, buyers are already shying away from PlayStation consoles that are straining wallets . The PS5 with optical drive moved 558 units, down from 2,801 sold the week before. Not faring any better, adoption of the Pro went from 4,662 to 840.
How? Xbox increased more, and first. And Xbox always did poorly in Japan.
If anyone doesn’t know the history, I think it was NEC, was a big electronics company in Japan that tried to make computers that competed with Windows 95 (because they ran something else, I forgot which) and they got their asses handed to them. So the Japanese have been salty toward Microsoft since then. The grudge has started to fade a bit, but it was still going strong at the start of the Series X|S generation (2020). The problem is twofold: Japanese developers won’t make games for Xbox, only Nintendo and/or PlayStation. And two, gamers aren’t buying Xbox in Japan.
I wonder if Xbox went up at all in Japan. It never moved much there. I wonder if they even bothered installing GamePass CDNs there. I wouldn’t.
Also worth noting, a lot of gamers/power user types in the west have been turning against Microsoft for issues with Windows 11 and Copilot. I got tired of their shit years ago and went to Mac for computers, but I still game on an Xbox Series X.
I do like seeing PlayStation get taken down a peg, because for all Microsoft’s issues, PlayStation has always been more anti-consumer. Trophies exist on PlayStation because Achievements were so popular on Xbox that PlayStation (and Steam) were practically forced to adopt them. Xbox has pushed for cross-play and PlayStation has always rejected it. Backwards compatibility is what the PS2 was known for, and the PS3 did it at first, but since then, they haven’t been as good, whereas Xbox has been great about backwards compatibility. Not perfect but great.
The official PS blog says the disc version of the PS5 is $649 and discless is $599. It’s currently on sale on Amazon, but the regular list price for a PS5 with disc drive there is $649.
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How? Xbox increased more, and first. And Xbox always did poorly in Japan.
If anyone doesn’t know the history, I think it was NEC, was a big electronics company in Japan that tried to make computers that competed with Windows 95 (because they ran something else, I forgot which) and they got their asses handed to them. So the Japanese have been salty toward Microsoft since then. The grudge has started to fade a bit, but it was still going strong at the start of the Series X|S generation (2020). The problem is twofold: Japanese developers won’t make games for Xbox, only Nintendo and/or PlayStation. And two, gamers aren’t buying Xbox in Japan.
I wonder if Xbox went up at all in Japan. It never moved much there. I wonder if they even bothered installing GamePass CDNs there. I wouldn’t.
Also worth noting, a lot of gamers/power user types in the west have been turning against Microsoft for issues with Windows 11 and Copilot. I got tired of their shit years ago and went to Mac for computers, but I still game on an Xbox Series X.
I do like seeing PlayStation get taken down a peg, because for all Microsoft’s issues, PlayStation has always been more anti-consumer. Trophies exist on PlayStation because Achievements were so popular on Xbox that PlayStation (and Steam) were practically forced to adopt them. Xbox has pushed for cross-play and PlayStation has always rejected it. Backwards compatibility is what the PS2 was known for, and the PS3 did it at first, but since then, they haven’t been as good, whereas Xbox has been great about backwards compatibility. Not perfect but great.
Xbox Series X is $649. PS5 is $699.
649<699
Xbox Series X is cheaper than PS5.
The official PS blog says the disc version of the PS5 is $649 and discless is $599. It’s currently on sale on Amazon, but the regular list price for a PS5 with disc drive there is $649.
As if Microsoft supported Japanese customers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC-98
PlayStation and Nintendo were embedded in the market, why would they engage with the Americans?