Xbox Series X|S Has Outsold PS5 in Japan Again | Hacker News Reader

Xbox Series X|S Has Outsold PS5 in Japan Again

gamespot.com

30 pointsnazgulsenpai60 comments

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For context, here's the full sales list from Famitsu for this week:

Switch / 19,907 units (total 18,399,758 units)

Switch Lite / 7,638 units (total 4,761,895 units)

Nintendo Switch (OLED model) / 22,860 units (total 1,899,156 units)

PS5 / 2,371 units (cumulative 1,451,795 units)

PS5 Digital Edition / 664 units (cumulative 242,208 units)

Xbox Series X / 3,272 units (cumulative 108,983 units)

Xbox Series S / 3,423 units (cumulative 13,076 units)

PS4 / 18 units (cumulative 7,819,701 units)

New Nintendo 2DS LL / 215 units (cumulative 1,187,058 units)

Thanks for this! It really puts things into perspective.

Is the reason PS5 and and Xbox are so low compared to Nintendo because Sony and Microsoft are american companies now ?

Or is it the fact most people are leaning towards a switch/steam deck/portable and a pc globally these days ? My son has NO interest in consoles, he plays pc games with his friends or mobile games on his phone.

A little bit of both. Portables have been the most popular systems in Japan for a while, and Nintendo's current position of shipping a portable and a dock that makes it a home console fits very well into that market. Sony has been publishing fewer games that aim directly at the Japanese market, which tends to look for different styles of games than the rest of the world.

Microsoft, on the other hand, has been actively seeking those games and making them available via Game Pass and their cloud streaming platform, which what may be driving those unit sales.

I guess it's like "Chicken or the egg" problem,

from Famitsu[1], all top 10 best-selling games are Switch games.

It the console don't have attractive games, Player won't buy it.But if the console doesn't sell well, game studios will hesitate to make exclusive game for it.

So yes, Currently only Switch has more "Japanese game" now.

[1] https://www.famitsu.com/news/202206/23266022.html

This has generally been the case with Nintendo relative to Sony/Microsoft. Nintendo console are typically cheaper and geared towards a more general audience. But it may not end up that way, the switch has been out for longer than the PS5/Xbox Series X so that accounts for a decent amount of the higher cumulative sales.

The weekly figures are also much much better for switch, so the gap in cumulative scales is only growing right now.

Sony isn't an American company. Sony, like Nintendo, has an American subsidiary. The headquarters and bulk of the company is in Japan.

>New Nintendo 2DS LL / 215 units

Nintendo stopped the manufacturing of the whole 2/3DS line back in 2020 September so I'm actually surprised you can still find _brand new_ ones at retailers. I haven't seen one in Europe anywhere since like last spring or so.

The later revision "new 3DS" in particular is very hard to obtain _brand new_ since they stopped being made and is selling for over the retail price where available.

That's more or less true for only US. I follow the main 3DS sub on reddit and for whatever reason the second hand market of 3DS prices are insane there. Whereas in Europe you can still buy a New Nintendo 3DSXL for very reasonable prices. On eBay and Facebook Market Place the lowest ones are running for 120-130€ and you won't see similar prices in the US.

But that's not just Nintendo only, I play MTG and cards are always cheaper in Europe than in the US. Just like with Nintendo less people who are "investing" into games

(the most prevailing theory on reddit is the Covid stimulus checks + "free" loans given out to small businesses. Basically lot of people got enough cash that they choose to invest into games)

Steam Deck units are so low it is not even shown, and didn't make the cut. Complete failure.

Famitsu only tracks units sold in Japanese stores. Since the Steam Deck is sold exclusively online, it will never show up.

I think it sells about 6000 a week worldwide, with production rising to 13000 soon.

The problem with this is that not only you 'think' it sells with that 'figure', but those numbers have no sources altogether. Thus, it can be dismissed as essentially unfounded.

Why did you put 'figure' in quotes?

This is the second week in 8 years in which the xbox outsold the PS5 in Japan. So this isn't overall sales - the title is somewhat misleading.

E: outsold a playstation, not the PS5

PS5 and Xbox Series X/S were released less than 2 years ago. I guess you're talking about the Xbox and PlayStation brands in general. Also, the article says it's the second week this year.

It's both the second time this year, and the second time in 8 years that Microsoft sold more Xboxes in a week than Sony sold PlayStations. Before that, the last time was the week the Xbox One launched in Japan. Even then, they only sold more than each type of PlayStation individually, not total.

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/for-the-first-time-...

You are correct, thank you.

If you click the link about the other week this year, that's where the 8 year figure is mentioned.

> appears to be more of a supply-based anomaly rather than a sudden, genuine change in consumer interest.

I think this is just one week. Weekly reports like this are usually more of an indication of shipment cadence than sales volume. Likely some shipments are held up in a congested port somewhere and this will reverse once that changes.

The only thing this shows me is that neither company is consistently keeping up with demand yet, though its getting much closer now.

EDIT: There are also some odd listings like this: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Microsoft-Xbox-Series-X-1TB-Conso... - Maybe grey market sales have a small impact here too.

Both Xbox and PS5 are still very supply constrained, even after almost 2 years since they came out you still cannot walk into a store and get one.

For what it's worth it's like this in CZ too:

- xbox (available): https://www.alza.cz/gaming/xbox/18892642.htm

- ps5 (unavailable, but you can buy controllers and stuff!) https://www.alza.cz/gaming/playstation-5/18872471.htm

I have to disagree on the Xbox's, I check Wal-Mart locally every time I shop and I see them in stock most of the time. The PS5? Non existent.

Depends on where you are, I'm sure. Here in Norway, for example, the XBox Series X is still extremely limited. I can't buy it online at retail price, but I could apparently travel 20km from central Oslo to the suburb where one store lists it in stock for in-person purchase only.

Took me months to get my hands on a Series X, maybe things have improved but only recently.

Which ones? The Series S, or X?

Both, granted we have 3 Wal-Mart's within 8mi and we visit one of them a few times a week.

My guess is that at launch and many months after launch most of the stock was being distributed in higher quantities in the US. It was pretty hard to find an Xbox here in Spain, both were selling all the units they could make. Seems the stock is improving now.

It has all to do with supply. I was a Playstation person for the longest time, but I bought a Series S this time around. My decision was entirely around the market, if I wanted a PS5 I had to pay a massive markup, meanwhile I could pay retail for a Series S and get basically the same performance (ok not the same but for a casual gamer).

It seems the Japanese got the same idea.

I have a PS5, but bought a Series S recently and since then the PS5 is gathering dust. Not because it's some superior console(it isn't) but because GamePass is just such a fantastic offering, and Sony's PS Plus Premium is just a joke in comparison. And the fact that nearly all games sync saves with their PC versions is just a cherry on top. I can play something on my gaming PC then move over to the living room and continue seamlessly - it's great. Can't do that with 99% of games on the PS5.

GamePass is one of the smartest moves that MS made with the Xbox. For a casual gamer who doesn't need to play the latest and greatest every time, the value is just unmatched.

Also liked that i could jump straight into downloading games when I got it and didn't have to pick which game to spend money on.

The one downside is the storage though...

The one downside is the storage though...

Cloud gaming is fixing that. Being able to test a game within 30 seconds without having to delete a bunch of old games to make space and wait for 50+GB to download is fantastic. If I end up really liking after playing it for a while, then I'll download it.

It also helps that MS supports downloading while you play the cloud version (albeit at a limited speed). Once you end the cloud session, the locally-downloaded game can pull your save, and you can continue from where you left off in a relatively seamless way.

Something is not right indeed, either Sony is incompetent and can't manage crisis, wich i doubt considering they control the industry with Nintendo (they have no problems btw)

Or something bad happened in their supply chain, and there is nothing they can do, wich is super fishy since Xbox/Nintendo have no problems

GamePass. It's insane value. Especially the Ultimate version which includes streaming on multiple devices and platforms, and PC access too. Sony has nothing compared to like that. And it's only ¥1,100 a month, incredibly cheap.

I have the Series S and combined with GamePass, it's a killer combination for any casual gamer. Affordable and compact console paired with a service where you can download a ton of AAA games for one low price.

Wow, so Series X and Series S have each outsold both PS5 variants put together. It would have made sense to me if both Xbox models together had more sales because the Series S is simply the cheapest option, but this is different.

Sounds like a supply chain issue, assuming the Xbox didn't suddenly explode in popularity in Japan compared to previous generations. Maybe Sony yet again prioritizes the foreign market like it did with the PS4 by delaying the launch in Japan compared to the rest of the world?

It’s really simple - just like everywhere else it’s still impossible to easily buy a PS5.

It’s kinda absurd Sony can’t control there own distribution and that virtually every PS5 they make ends up in scalpers hands.

Xbox was impossible to buy locally until like 2 weeks ago in the US.

This article is really about who can pump out more units, not which has more customer demand. It needs to be in stock everywhere to really get a customer demand picture..

I noticed that the X was out of stock everywhere but the S seemed to have been in stock for a while. When I bought mine a few months ago the store had about 5-6 in stock and the clerk said this was par for the course with other stores.

Yah also that. I think a lot of people had last generation consoles, and the S was not a clear win for those users. For people that actually wanted 4k, you need an X.

I just randomly checked my local target on the app once a week or so, and finally got an X about a month ago. It took me almost a year to find it (I refuse to participate in the secondary market). However I checked randomly yesterday, and my local target had 2 Xs in stock, so must finally be making it.

The Series S is limited to 1440p, and I think most gamers want 4K support, which is why the S is so easy to find. It was good of Microsoft to try and create a more affordable version, but I think they overestimated how many people were willing to live with the 1440p limitation.

> I think they overestimated how many people were willing to live with the 1440p limitation.

The numbers in the article suggest otherwise. Or at least that people would rather have a 1440p console than nothing, and not everyone has a 4k screen yet.

I got a Series S because it's cheap and I didn't want to go through all the waiting. Works pretty fine, aside from the bad OS. Also game graphics are improving at a much slower pace nowadays, I don't see a reason to go for better hardware. Most games look pretty fine to me, and things that looked terrible 5 years ago are still not much better.

>>It’s kinda absurd Sony can’t control there own distribution and that virtually every PS5 they make ends up in scalpers hands.

That hasn't been the case for a long time now(at least here in UK). I wouldn't say it's consistently in stock, but 6 out of 7 days of the week you can just buy one somewhere, at RRP. Recently even deals started to appear - RRP with a game or a controller thrown in. Recent restock at Argos and Amazon had stock for literally 2 weeks before they ran out - either they finally caught up with production, or the demand has dried up somewhat. I think it's the latter - everyone I know who wanted a PS5 has already bought one.

Pretty much what your are saying, every produced unit (xbox series x or ps5) finds a buyer instantly. It can only be supply chain issues.

We're talking a week's worth of sales here, so lifetime numbers are different. Nevertheless, Microsoft Xbox Series X|S seems to be around 80% of the PS5 sales, which isn't bad - it could be that Sony did a better job of securing manufacturing capacity.

In any event, it's great to have healthy competition in game consoles.

And Sony started manufacturing earlier than Microsoft. So at launch they had more units available.

Sony reported in June that PS5 is at over 20 million units sold so far, Series S|X together I think are close, at around 15 million.

man, I used to hear about XBox Series X/PS5 way back before 2020 and I've never found either to be easily available in stock. As a casual gamer, I can't be bothered to juggle through multiple websites and pay a premium.

Where do you live? Here in UK either console has been pretty easy to get without much faff since at least christmas. They stay in stock for weeks now, I suspect the demand has really dried up by now.

Series X:

https://www.game.co.uk/en/xbox-series-x-2831406

PS5:

https://ao.com/product/p5hehwcst60914-playstation-console-wh...

Easy is not the word I would use to describe the situation in the UK. It's only been ebay or special BT customer bundles that are consistently available. And even that bundle you linked is £200 higher than the regular console.

Argos has had stock of this bundle for weeks now, it's very consistently available if you don't mind paying the extra £50 for Horizon Forbidden West(which is actually a decent deal)

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/2741831?clickPR=plp:3:4

If you actually try to click buy on the XBox Series X, you'll be told they're out of stock. So clearly stock is still constrained.

Ok well, Amazon has it in stock at RRP then:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08H93GKNJ/ref=as_li_ss_...

I would've bought a PS5, but it's just not available. I won't go out of my way monitoring shops and/or pay premium plus for a console that is soon 2 years old at this point.

PS5 might as well not exist for many regular people.

I'd likely buy a PS5 if I didn't need to pay scalper prices.

well at this rate you have better chance of buying PS6. Supply chain shocks are here to stay for years to come.

Sony and Amazon both just did a new round of invitations that stayed up for quite a while. PS5's are a lot easier to get than they were a month ago. Xbox's are even easier, and you can actually find graphics cards selling below list price.

I don't think gasoline is going to be cheap again any time soon, but the limited supply of PS5, Xbox and graphics cards is pretty much over.

I've wanted to get a PS5 since it came out, and I still haven't been able to get one. Mainly because I don't want to pay any markup.

I measure PS5 availability by looking at what the current markup is. Earlier this year, it was at 1300 SGD, and it has slowly gone down with the current cheapest price on Shopee 939 SGD.

At this rate, I doubt we'll see it available at list price this year.

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