Blu-ray hits 96% of Japanese market with help of PS3

16 Jan 07 22:34 by Seán Byrne in category Uncategorized To news archive

Despite the PlayStation 3’s struggling sales in the US, the PS3 has been a major help for the Blu-ray format in the Japanese market, bringing its market share to 96% in Japan with sales way ahead of both the Xbox 360 and Wii, based on this WesleyTech report.  While this does not mean every PS3 owner is going to play Blu-ray movie titles, this is seen as a significant success for Sony at least in its home country.

On the other hand, the story turns completely different once we take a look outside of Japan.  According to Ars Technica, now that the holiday season is over, it looks like the once near-impossible PS3 has turned the other direction in the US with the PS3 now well stocked stock in many retail stores including Wal-Mart, GameStop and Circuit City.  Even those who try selling them on eBay are lucky enough to attract buyers, unlike the enormous bids they were fetching around a month ago.  However, while the sales don’t appear to be as strong as expected, it is not clear at this time whether it is simply that the supply has finally caught up with demand or if consumers were not really that interested in the PS3 after all, particularly with many early buyers simply purchasing to resell on eBay for a profit.  

6 Comments

Shadowman69
Posts: 155
Posted on: 17 Jan 07 09:01
Nothing new... It was already obvious that the PS3 will have strong sales in Japan... JP is Sony home country and XBOX360 has a lot of prejudice there and still does not sell well even if MS tried a lot to make it accepted (Blue Dragon is an example...). It's sad but when arrogant Sony's representatives stated that "the next gen will start with us" they already known that for the JP market it will surely be true. Lucky for us their arrogance did not apply outside the Japan and they will struggle a lot more to make the PS3 sales good enough outside their home country...
I Have Piles
Posts: 586
Posted on: 17 Jan 07 14:14
How can the PS3 have a 96% market share in Japan given the huge numbers the Wii, DS and for that matter even the PS2 sell in? Japan's economic newspaper Nikkei is reporting that the DS and the Wii are selling out quick, while the PS3 is not. For example, a Yodobashi Camera in Sendai got in 3,000 Wiis, DSes and PS3s. The Wiis and the DSes sold-out in one hour, but days later, the PS3s still remained. Source http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/nikkei/nikkei-on-big-ds-and-wii-sales-slow-ps3-sales-226834.php
sonoluca
Posts: 279
Posted on: 17 Jan 07 15:22
You have misunderstood it. 96% share is for Blu-ray, not PS3, it's so high due to help of PS3
I Have Piles
Posts: 586
Posted on: 18 Jan 07 03:07
So it has a 96% share of the HD formats in Japan even though it just happened to come with a machine they wanted to play games on and they probably didn't buy it for Blu-Ray drive? Thats a bit like saying air has a 100% market share of the oxygen we need.
shimman
Posts: 596
Posted on: 18 Jan 07 08:18
not sure whether there was a stand alone bd player in japan at all before ps3. afaik, samsung was the only company brave enough to market the bd player. i don't think there have been much of titles for hd titles in japan to fuel the market, but ps3 is a game console & which happened to play bd, so i think the number means nothing...maybe something but not much. as long as hd dvd camp can keep the cost down a lot compare to bd, hd-dvd has better chance even in japan
deezus
Posts: 40
Posted on: 20 Jan 07 01:26
What a lame bit of misconception....so if they only sold 96 ps3/bd players and 4 hd dvd players they would have 96% share of the BD market....lol...they just wanted to piut that 96 out there....

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