Japan Sales Thread
- Thread starter pipo
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Silent_Buddha
Legend
Pretty much, for a while there my mother was calling me every single bleeping day from Japan asking about the swine flu. And god forbid if I happen to cough on the phone. 
Regards,
SB
Regards,
SB
Well, to some extent there's a lot of hysteria. Though, it's not the usual "we're all gonna die" panic. It's more like overblown media hype. Things I have noticed so far apart from facial masks being sold out everywhere, public transportation is emptier than usual, some events have been cancelled, all schools and universities have been closed down for one week in Kansai. I've not been to the big electronic stores / quarters for a while, so I don't know what's going on there. The only thing I can comment on is that the Karaoke establishments are filled to the brim with pupils and students trying to pass their time. So they should at least be happy
Apart from that daily life continues...
The swine flu currently doesn't seem so dangerous. I think the main risks are two-fold:
1. the virus will mutate. The question is whether or not it will mutate into something more deadly, or into something fairly harmless (like regular flu). Typically a virus mutates into something that suits the host organism a little better. If it turns into something really deadly, that's also not as dangerous as you may think because if people die really quickly, then the virus has less cause to spread also. The intermediate form is really the most dangerous - you die, but not after a fair while, with enough time to infect new people.
2. If we have to use a lot of tamiflu to battle existing cases now, this will increase the likelihood of a new form of flu turning up against which tamiflu won't work. This is why there's such strict control on the distribution and use of tamiflu.
The first line of defense at least seems to be broken - Mexico clearly has given up fighting the spread of the disease, and now New York seems to lose the battle very, very quickly also. From there it's very likely to spread basically everywhere. It shows, above all, that we're a very connected people here on Earth and a deadly virus can wipe out a lot of people - no-one is really safe unless we suddenly all stop traveling all over the place (and even then global distribution of goods would be a problem).
3. of course if you are already ill, any form of flu is dangerous, and this flu is particularly dangerous to anyone with a long condition, like a pneumonia.
I'm actually wondering if you could more safely mitigate the dangers of H1N1 by administering antihistamine, because basically the danger in this form now is that your body seems to overreact against it, producing anti-bodies that can't do anything and seem to clog your lungs, if I understood things correctly. Anti-histamine (also used against acute allergies) might help there, if the virus itself isn't inherently dangerous.
For Japan though I would have thought that the sales decline is more related to the problems with the economy, but what I hear in this thread seems to confirm that the swine flu plays a part.
The combination of the two could be pretty damning (global swineflu pandemic combined with the already very weak economy)
On the other hand, for online gaming and particularly combined with online distribution, well there's no safer way to interact right now. Would be interesting to see if there's a spike in online sales in Japan to accompany the decline in retail
1. the virus will mutate. The question is whether or not it will mutate into something more deadly, or into something fairly harmless (like regular flu). Typically a virus mutates into something that suits the host organism a little better. If it turns into something really deadly, that's also not as dangerous as you may think because if people die really quickly, then the virus has less cause to spread also. The intermediate form is really the most dangerous - you die, but not after a fair while, with enough time to infect new people.
2. If we have to use a lot of tamiflu to battle existing cases now, this will increase the likelihood of a new form of flu turning up against which tamiflu won't work. This is why there's such strict control on the distribution and use of tamiflu.
The first line of defense at least seems to be broken - Mexico clearly has given up fighting the spread of the disease, and now New York seems to lose the battle very, very quickly also. From there it's very likely to spread basically everywhere. It shows, above all, that we're a very connected people here on Earth and a deadly virus can wipe out a lot of people - no-one is really safe unless we suddenly all stop traveling all over the place (and even then global distribution of goods would be a problem).
3. of course if you are already ill, any form of flu is dangerous, and this flu is particularly dangerous to anyone with a long condition, like a pneumonia.
I'm actually wondering if you could more safely mitigate the dangers of H1N1 by administering antihistamine, because basically the danger in this form now is that your body seems to overreact against it, producing anti-bodies that can't do anything and seem to clog your lungs, if I understood things correctly. Anti-histamine (also used against acute allergies) might help there, if the virus itself isn't inherently dangerous.
For Japan though I would have thought that the sales decline is more related to the problems with the economy, but what I hear in this thread seems to confirm that the swine flu plays a part.
The combination of the two could be pretty damning (global swineflu pandemic combined with the already very weak economy)
On the other hand, for online gaming and particularly combined with online distribution, well there's no safer way to interact right now. Would be interesting to see if there's a spike in online sales in Japan to accompany the decline in retail
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Online purchasing is still relatively new in Japan. Heck the percentage of Japanese citizens that were online trailed most developed nations for quite a while.
Was a bit of a paradox considering they have one of the fastest national internet infrastructures in the world. Although their outbound connections to the rest of the world is severly limited (in comparison).
However, people hopping online has been booming or at least growing steadily the past couple years.
Regards,
SB
Was a bit of a paradox considering they have one of the fastest national internet infrastructures in the world. Although their outbound connections to the rest of the world is severly limited (in comparison).
However, people hopping online has been booming or at least growing steadily the past couple years.
Regards,
SB
Kind of a weird view considering that the Japanes telephone network has been at least one generation ahead of the rest of the world for the past twenty years.
For example the Apple i-phone app-store thing is really old news in Japan, so online purchasing is really not a new thing to them.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Yeah for phones, but for computers, they just haven't really taken off like in most of the rest of the developed nations.
Never could figure out why. They are big on gadgets, big on technology. But computers per person has been quite low in Japan. And internet use even lower.
But as I said its been seeing a steady increase in the past couple years.
Regards,
SB
Probably because they alreay had an infrastructure that already partly served the same purpose.
MediaCreate 18th to 24th 2009
-------Hardware - This Week|Last Week|2009 Sales|Lifetime Sales
1.) Nintendo DS (all) - 39,464 | 39,040 | 1,404,819 | 26,524,454
2.) Sony PSP (all) - 27,536 | 28,683 | 1,018,907 | 12,377,010
3.) Nintendo Wii - 16,233 | 15,116 | 527,564 | 8,006,541
4.) PlayStation 3 - 10,932 | 11,605 | 535,659 | 3,158,127
5.) PlayStation 2 - 4,075 | 4,020 | 113,397 | 21,512,926
6.) Xbox 360 - 3,854 | 3,233 | 197,611 | 1,027,048
X) Nintendo DSi - 33,833 | 34,152 | 1,142,088 | 2,373,447
X) Nintendo DS Lite - 5,631 | 4,888 | 262,731 | 17,565,536
-------Hardware - This Week|Last Week|2009 Sales|Lifetime Sales
1.) Nintendo DS (all) - 39,464 | 39,040 | 1,404,819 | 26,524,454
2.) Sony PSP (all) - 27,536 | 28,683 | 1,018,907 | 12,377,010
3.) Nintendo Wii - 16,233 | 15,116 | 527,564 | 8,006,541
4.) PlayStation 3 - 10,932 | 11,605 | 535,659 | 3,158,127
5.) PlayStation 2 - 4,075 | 4,020 | 113,397 | 21,512,926
6.) Xbox 360 - 3,854 | 3,233 | 197,611 | 1,027,048
X) Nintendo DSi - 33,833 | 34,152 | 1,142,088 | 2,373,447
X) Nintendo DS Lite - 5,631 | 4,888 | 262,731 | 17,565,536
MediaCreate 25th to 31st of May 2009
|System|This Week|Last Week| YTD | LTD |
------------------------------------------------------------------
| NDS | 73,056 | 39,464 | 1,477,875 | 26,597,510 |
| PSP | 32,251 | 27,536 | 1,051,158 | 12,409,261 |
| WII | 17,810 | 16,233 | 545,374 | 8,024,351 |
| PS3 | 12,427 | 10,932 | 548,086 | 3,170,554 |
| 360 | 4,857 | 3,854 | 202,468 | 1,031,905 |
| PS2 | 4,120 | 4,075 | 117,517 | 21,517,046 |
------------------------------------------------------------------
| DSi | 65,537 | 33,833 | 1,207,625 | 2,438,984 |
| DSL | 7,519 | 5,631 | 270,250 | 17,573,055 |
------------------------------------------------------------------
|System|This Week|Last Week| YTD | LTD |
------------------------------------------------------------------
| NDS | 73,056 | 39,464 | 1,477,875 | 26,597,510 |
| PSP | 32,251 | 27,536 | 1,051,158 | 12,409,261 |
| WII | 17,810 | 16,233 | 545,374 | 8,024,351 |
| PS3 | 12,427 | 10,932 | 548,086 | 3,170,554 |
| 360 | 4,857 | 3,854 | 202,468 | 1,031,905 |
| PS2 | 4,120 | 4,075 | 117,517 | 21,517,046 |
------------------------------------------------------------------
| DSi | 65,537 | 33,833 | 1,207,625 | 2,438,984 |
| DSL | 7,519 | 5,631 | 270,250 | 17,573,055 |
------------------------------------------------------------------
Haven't seen these in a while ... surprised to see xb360 hit the million mark.
More surprised to see ps3 only hit 3m so far.
It's making sense now seeing the Japanese developers slide a bit in comparison to where they were ten years ago.
The console market is really dead there.
More surprised to see ps3 only hit 3m so far.
It's making sense now seeing the Japanese developers slide a bit in comparison to where they were ten years ago.
The console market is really dead there.
Handhelds, but everything's low now. But reports are that this NPD, everything will be down 50% from last year, so maybe it's not just Japan.
Portables.
Take a look at ps2 sales to see how far off the console market has slid in Japan.
Japan is not the same like before. But you can always count on FF, DQ and GT to move hardware at specific points of the year, especially if they become bundle. The PS3 will see massive sale spikes with FFXIII and GT5 releases. Wii will had MG2 next year. Don't know about the 360. Sony's portfolio for Japan will see the biggest boosts.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Definitely portables. You just can't go anywhere without seeing some kid with a NDS. Kind of surprised to see PSP picking up over there. A couple years back the PSP was basically dead in the water.
Regards,
SB
Regards,
SB
As before, Media Create collated into monthly figures aligned to NPD May:
Headlines:
- Wii regains top home sales spot, although due to a significant fall in PS3 sales rather than a particular upturn in Wii sales
- Wii and PS3 YTD within 3k units
- Wii hits 8m units sold LTD
- PS2 outsells 360 in May
- PSP reaches 1m YTD
Graph of weekly averages per month, showing the falloff of HD console sales from April:
Code:
[B]Home[/B]
Mar YTD LTD
Wii: 73,556 545,374 8,024,275
PS3: 53,447 548,086 3,170,514
PS2: 17,352 117,447
360: 17,012 202,738 1,033,008
[B]Handheld[/B]
Mar YTD LTD
NDS: 214,763 1,477,865 26,597,508
PSP: 131,479 1,051,178 12,409,342
[B]NDS Split[/B]
Mar YTD LTD
DSi: 188,904 1,207,625 2,438,984
DSL: 25,859 270,240 17,573,045Headlines:
- Wii regains top home sales spot, although due to a significant fall in PS3 sales rather than a particular upturn in Wii sales
- Wii and PS3 YTD within 3k units
- Wii hits 8m units sold LTD
- PS2 outsells 360 in May
- PSP reaches 1m YTD
Graph of weekly averages per month, showing the falloff of HD console sales from April:
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Looking at YTD numbers, I'm really surprised at the momentum PSP has gained recently. As I stated before, PSP appeared headed in the direction of being a failure just a couple years ago. Now it's approaching NDS numbers.
Amazing turnaround.
Regards,
SB
Amazing turnaround.
Regards,
SB
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