When the PS4 first launched in Japan, sales didn’t seem so promising until towards the weekend, where Sony has reported selling over 300,000 units in the country.
The sudden boom in purchases caused PS4 stocks in both retail stores and online to shrink dramatically.
Hiroshi Kawano, the President of Sony Computer Entertainment Japan/Asia was running on two hours of sleep and attending launch events all day, seeing the sale boom right before his own eyes. In an interview with Nikkei Trendy, he says:
“We’re seeing the upsurge grow gradually in Japan. We want to clearly tell the concept of the PS4, that’s it’s different from PS3 and that its features are important. We want to show that it’s not just a successor.”
He gave his insight on the articles that were saying that PS4 sales were sluggish:
“Mainly due to the fact that online stores shown “in stock” at the beginning, some said that the PS4 wasn’t selling well in Japan. Yet those sites gradually went to “out of stock” and over the counter availability has become scarce as well.”
Kawano-san explains how Sony’s strategy will be to bring interest back to the home console. They would like to expand to a variety of consumers by widening its popularity by using the power of social media.
The second batch of PS4’s has been supplied to Amazon Japan and a popular retailer called Yodobashi, where stocks are beginning to run low all throughout the country.
Yodobashi online has already ran out of stock and their stores are running low on PS4’s once again. The table below shows the next delivery of more PS4’s.
How well do you think the PS4 is doing in Japan? Comment below.