Playstation 3 Sells Out At Japanese Launch 250
s31523 writes "With its high price tag and stiff competition the PS3 was a gamble. Based on the reaction in Japan to the game console's release, there might be a new hot toy on everyone's Christmas list here in the states. According to the article there were 100,000 units [Z: actually, only 80,000 units] available and all were sold out in record time. There are 2 configurations currently offered, a 60GB WiFi enabled box and a 20GB non-WiFi box. The Japanese price for the lower end system is considerably discounted vs. the system to be released in the States." For a look at launch day, Kotaku has photos taken by Sony's Phil Harrison on the streets of Tokyo.
The very definition of "hardcore" (Score:5, Funny)
Well, I guess that shows who Sony's demographics are, 41 year old men who put gaming ahead of basic biological function. Take that Maslow!
Re:The very definition of "hardcore" (Score:4, Funny)
Apparently one of the campers called in sick (for two weeks?), and had to postpone his engagement to divert the ring fund to a PlayStation 3, while another guy quit his job altogether.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/ps3-hopefuls-pa rt-ii/ [engadget.com]
Re:The very definition of "hardcore" (Score:5, Insightful)
since Sony has messed about with the European launch date, I have flown all the way to Japan to get my hands on one.
To myself I think - it must be nice to be able to afford to buy a PS3. Must be nice to be able to afford to go to Japan. Lots of things to see there like districts in Tokyo, shrines, Japanese food. Yeah, interesting that you'd just fly to Japan, get a PS3 then fly home. I'd probably sell the thing, but if you have enough money to fly to Japan for no reason other than to buy a game console, you obviously don't need the money!
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The very definition of "hardcore" (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
(And as any knowledge worker will tell you, for any data problem, there's a hierarchical representation that is simple, clear, practical and wrong. Essentially any time you see a neat hierarchy, something is being over-simplified.)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
"LOL. At first I thought you were making a reference to the movie 'Real Genius', but then I realized that the name of the guy in that movie was Laslow, and then I remembered my Psychology courses...."
Re:The very definition of "hardcore" (Score:5, Funny)
Sony's Strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
No further comment needed
Sony Rhetoric (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sony Rhetoric (Score:5, Funny)
(It is pretty good though. I love the auction in the background of the second-to-last panel.)
Re: (Score:2)
If they're so technology hungry.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
$1400 for a ps3 on ebay? Assuming I'd spend about $800 on one with games and whatnot, that'd leave $600 for profit. 24 hours standing outside for $600 is about $27 an hour. It might suck (especially in the cold where I'm at), but that's pretty good money when you think about it.
On that note, I didn't think mo
Re: (Score:2)
I am not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
And the real question for success (Score:2)
Sony's problem isn't going to be selling out their first consoles. It's going to be making sure they get the games to convince people that it's something they need to have. That wa
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not really, unless you want to call everybody who plans to purchase a HD TV this year an outlier. That would be how many million outliers?
By the time the early adopter market gets even close to mined out, Sony will have ramped production and started the price cuts, just like every other console cycle.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Your logic is a bit problematic. How does your statement I personally won't bat an eye about dropping $600 on this box. After all, I'm picking up a $2,500 flat screen tv to go with it. equal to everybody who plans to purchase a HD TV this year?
Hint: To get you started, first look at the pricing of the models that all these people will be buying. Ask yourself - will most
Re: (Score:2)
Pray tell me, which analysts are these and how do you known they actually know what they are talking about? Reports from Japan indicate it is already selling to a mixed demographic. I am confident in my own prediction: Sony will sell every PS3 it can build for the next long time. Look at this site [ps3stocktracker.com], there are lots more like it. Each new shipment is going to
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed, a CRT is sti
Too Bad You Can't Get It (Score:3, Informative)
Is there anyone who ever doubted that the PS3 would be sold out until Spring? I assumed that with all of the stories about people planning to sell it for $3,000 on eBay that this was common knowledge by now.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't get excited by the hype and you won't be shellingout 3K for a $600 system:)
Big freakin' deal. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Super Nintendo sold out 300,000 units.
Sony provide less than a hundred thousand to an amazingly gadget hungry market and it's now headlines that it sells out?
And in terms of all system sales... (Score:5, Insightful)
Notice the amount of hardware sold... in a week... in Japan. The DS completely dominates with more than 100,000 sold in a WEEK. This is months after it has launched, while the PS3 has only 80,000 to sell. Now yes, the DS costs much less, but notice that Nintendo probably makes a profit on it rather than a loss, AND this amount of units allows them to sell more software.
How much software is going to move for the PS3 when it's launch is only 80,000? Most of those best seller games are in the area of several 100 thousand to several million units sold. That isn't going to happen for a while. So yes the PS3 sold out, but we can't call it any kind of success yet with this few sold. Maybe if they pushed out 1 million units and sold them all, then we can say they were a success.
How is this a success? (Score:2)
Of course this will just drum up buzz and people will pay some lucky bastard on eBay 5 times the retail price for one.
Of course it sold out (Score:2)
I'd like to see a breakdown of High end-vs-Low end units. Does anyone have those numbers?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm confused... did you just argue that selling lots of your game now might somehow upset your customers, as opposed to releasing it for a platform no-one can buy?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm Big in Japan (Score:5, Interesting)
VisualBoy (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Personally, I am not a fanboy of any console. As I posted before, I used to be a Nintendo fanboy but had that habit firmly broken by the N64. And if anything, I'm biased against the Xbox because it's sold by Microsoft. I have no reason at all to be prejudiced against Sony. And I agree 100% with the parent post. The PS3 would have sold out 80k units in Japan even if the PS3 was priced at $1000 at launch. Even if it was $1000 and smelled like burning
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, that is obvious. But explain to me why the GP was swearing?
Re: (Score:2)
Every time a console gets launched, it's exactly the same story. And yet the media always reports it the same way, as if it's some undeniable sign of breakneck success. When in reality, it's simply intentionally supplying a fraction of enough units to meet demand so you get get the idiot press to advertise for you.
The REAL story is when a console maker can't manage this, like the case of the Xbox/Xbox360 failures. That's when it's actually news.
dot dot dot... (Score:2)
Man, who would have thought that japanese would buy out 80000 consoles. No way!
haha (Score:2)
The Big picture (Score:4, Interesting)
It may also be interesting to see how Sony's launch titles did, since they need games and accessories to pull up the difference. Some of the games present on Sony's Japan launch list [1up.com] also appear on the Wii's. Depending on quantities of these sold compared to the number of units sold in proportion to other games per unit sold may tell us if there are customers prepared to buy the Wii as well and plan on buying those games for the Wii instead. While it would have to be a large difference to overcome the large margin of error such a comparison welcomes, it may still provide some insite into the minds of the buyers and give us a rough idea how the big US launch will go for Sony or Nintendo.
Wow they sold 80,000..... so? (Score:2)
Selling out at launch isn't hard. It's even easier if you only ship a fraction of what the competition is selling. Which is betterin the Wii selling out over 400,000 units in japan (which is almost definate) or the Ps3 selling out 100,000 units?
I just have one question? Why is this news?
80,000 - at rrp? (Score:5, Insightful)
As usual... (Score:5, Interesting)
Impressions:
- That's one huge cooling fan!
- Why did they use a Seagate drive, when Seagate is known for sucking more power than just about anybody else?
- Not as many components on the MB as you might expect for a first revision.
- The ATI RSX has its video memory on the module, but not in-core.
According to posts on various Japanese sites, there also seem to be a few problems.
- The unit gets hot. Very hot.
- A couple of people reported the unit powering off during the software update, which permanently bricked the unit.
- The browser can't play Flash.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A larger fan rotates slower and is therefore more quiet. Engadget says After plenty of gameplay the console is cool -- or at worst warm -- to the touch on every surface. In a side by side test with the Xbox 360, the console is comparably virtually silent, and the Blu-ray drive is significantly quieter than the 360's DVD drive. [engadget.com]
Why did they use a Seagate drive, when Seagate is known for sucking more power than just about anybody else?
Really? This Seagate 60GB drive [seagate.com] eats
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I have not known this to be the case. When I replaced a Toshiba drive with a Seagate in my laptop, I doubled the capacity on 55% of the power or so. The Seagate drive in my games machine had about 60% of the power consumption of the WD.
I personally use them for nearly everything for three reasons:
* Five
* Year
* Warranty
Re: (Score:2)
Is anyone really surprised? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, I go to the store, and there's about 3 cars waiting outside of the store. 2 have the geekiest geeks you've ever seen in your life sitting in them, 1 has a couple just kind of hanging out eating snacks. They're all waiting for a PS3 shipment that is apparently late getting to the store.
I walk up to the store and there is a big sign on the front that says "We are sorry for the inconvenience, but we will be getting only 1-3 PS3s, and they will be given out at a first come first serve basis." It was 9pm on launch day, and apparently they still hadn't come yet.
To give you some background of where I live: I live in a town of around 500,000 people. The surrounding area is all farms, so I figure within 20km of me, there are all of 3 stores that are selling PS3s. If each one gets 1-3 machines, that means that if one in 100,000 people decides "hmmm, I would like a PS3.." then they will sell out.
Calling that a victory is just lunacy.
Chinese people buying the japanese PS3s (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The end of Sony bashing? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The end of Sony bashing? (Score:5, Funny)
Kutaragi-san, don't you have better places to be right now than the slashdot forums?! You should be working on production issues, better developer tools, and lack of strong launch titles...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The average sales for the Nintendo DS Lite in a give week are about 100,000 units
On a good week (when they release a highly popular game) the DS Lite sells about 250,000 units
Claiming that the PS3 won't fail because it sold 80,000 units in its launch week is foolish; hell the XBox 360 sold
Re: (Score:2)
"...we could see worlds that could equal what was in use in the movie Toy Story."
I'm still not buying a PS3, but a Xbox360 may be in my future depending on what the new games look like.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So. Fucking. Japanese.
Dear Lord, does somebody havea rusty spoon I can borrow? I need to gouge out my own eyeballs after seeing that saccharine hell.
And I actually thought I was an otaku...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Yeah, Hot new Xmas Item... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's not artificial at all, it is about the rate that Cell chips can be supplied and Blurays built. Also consider that unlike Microsoft, Sony does not intend to throw billions down the drain on their console business, and therefore has not written a lot of blank checks to scale up the early production. The early
Re: (Score:2)
Rob
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Artificial scarcity can, in fact, cause an increase in the demand as well, though. But it's a psychological thing: if one sees that product X is selling out all the time, they conclude that it is popular, and in a "keeping up with the Joneses" sort of thing, they further conclude that they should endeavor to get one at the earliest opportunity as well, causing the rise in demand.
Even imagined peer pressure can affect a person just as much as real peer pressure, so of course, artificial scarcity doesn't
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The scarcity is real: there are problems producing blue laser diodes, and Sony has already postponed orders for diodes to other companies and is allocating the entire production to PS3 right now. Sony delayed their own Bluray player for this reason.
There is a reason why both BluRay and HD DVD players are spendy: the diodes are the bottleneck.
Irony: there are more PS3's slated for release day in the US than Microsoft had ready for the 360 release date last year. But in typical "let's bitch about S
Re: (Score:2)
Whoa buddy. You seem to be cramming words into my mouth here. (Perhaps rehashing the console wars over and over again is making people cranky.)
If we agree that fraud is for lying for person gain, then yes, Sony selling fewer units than they actually have and then claiming to have "run out" is fraud. (Although not the criminal kind, I suspect.) The fraud part of course being the second part, where they lie about the supply.
And, strictly speaking, I am pretending this "market vulnerability" you all
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Rob
Re: (Score:2)
I disagree. The demand for diamond engagement rings is almost certainly higher due to the suppressed supply. Otherwise nobody would want them.
I don't think there's any doubt that low supply (and apparent or actual exclusivity) can boost demand. Of course, it would be absurd to suggest that that demand was any less "real" or more "fraudulent" than demand boosted by showing pretty girls drooling over the latest car, or adverts proclaiming how wonderfully white
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
2. People would still demand diamonds, they just wouldn't demand them at current prices.
Now, I will admit that demand has been boosted somewhat, but not t
Re: (Score:2)
I have no way of measuring the effect in relation to the PS3 but there are many many people for whom getting something that others don't have (or can't have) yet is a motivation. To witness companies taking this to absurd extreme, look at some of the ridiculous "collector" editions of games.
This is followed by "keeping up with the Joneses" where those left out need to catch up because just as having something
Re: (Score:2)
For the sake of argument, I'm going to make up some demand numbers here. If the PS3 has a market of 1,000,000 people, and Sony only releases 500,000 units, those units get snapped up immediately, and Sony can say, "Hey, look! We sold out! What a success!" As the weeks and months go on, the demand numbers will increase as more people see the machine in action and
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not exactly. It does allow them to say that they sold out at lower numbers, but the numbers are still low. The reason why the Wii launch would be considered a "failure" if it only sold half of the units produced isn't because it didn't sell out, but because it didn't sell to expectations. It bears noting that the PS3 hasn't yet sold to expectations either, though for different reasons.
Rob
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Rob
Re:Yeah, Hot new Xmas Item... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
In the case of diamonds, the effect that lowering supply has on the demand curve is a special function of diamonds, not a universal rule. IOW, yes, the high price of diamonds is a big reason why people want them, but this doesn't apply to the PS3. It very obviously doesn't apply
Re: (Score:2)
What econ did you take? Lowered supply always increases demand unless it is an easily substitutable good, in which case it shifts higher demand to the substitutes (for example a lower supply of milk increases the demand for milk, while a lower supply of butter will increase the demand for margarine).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Rob
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Wha? I have one weiner (a low supply you will agree?). Yet there is very little demand. *sigh*
I'm sure you can argue how I'm wrong with my interpretation of your comment, and you could very well be correct in that argument. I'm just joking around, is all.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
1. PS3 Japan/US versions can no only play the same games, but the same bluray movies.
2. Japan use NTSC. It is Europe that uses PAL, and that's moot with HMDI anyway.
Thanks for playing.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Rob
Re:Technical Issues Already (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
your decimal is off by one place (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)