It’s only limited to one country, but it’s still more than nothing: we know how many PlayStation 5s and Xbox Series-es have been sold in one of the key markets for the gaming industry.
According to Famitsu, a Japanese publication, in its first four days in Japan (from November 12 to November 15), 118085 PlayStation 5 units were sold (and we have no ratio of how much of that were PlayStation 5 Standard Editions and PlayStation 5 Digital Editions). In comparison, the Xbox Series X and the Xbox Series S (with no further details on this side either) sold 20534 units in its first six days (from November 10 to November 15). It shows that the PlayStation 5 can show a 6x better launch in 2/3 time, meaning the local market still tilts in their favour. The consoles were all sold out via pre-orders, and there’s a lack of supply for both manufacturers, but they seek to produce more units to sell them and satisfy the demands.
Let’s compare this with the previous generation’s launch. According to Famitsu, in two days (February 22 and 23, 2014), the PlayStation 4 sold 322083 units in Japan. The Xbox One sold 23562 units in its first four days (from September 4 to September 7, 2014). So the Xbox Series fell back, but the PlayStation 5 fell even further. However, all the new consoles have backwards compatibility, not pushing the customers to do the transition as quickly as possible (or they can’t afford it at the moment…). Also, the PlayStation 4 launched much later in Japan than in the US (and not the same day, as was the case with the PlayStation 5), meaning Sony could provide more units for launch sales, which further distorts the numbers.
However, previously, Microsoft was in an even better situation in the Asian country. In its first two days (November 11 and 12, 2006), the PlayStation 3 sold 88443 units. The Xbox 360 (again in two days, December 10 and 11, 2005) sold 62135 units, making it a fairly respectable launch for the American company.
There are a few more software sales details. We can’t provide Xbox Series physical sales – the game sales are mostly digital in Japan. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales was the top-selling PlayStation 5 game with 18640 sold physical units. Demon’s Souls wasn’t much behind with 18607 units.
As Microsoft won’t publish sales figures (we recently wrote why), we should expect Sony to announce hitting one million PlayStation 5 sales.
Source: Gematsu
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