It looks like things have taken a turn for the
worst when it comes to Sony PlayStation and the Japanese base we've had multiple different price
increases over the last number of years in Japan the PlayStation 5 Pro was announced recently with
a staggering price point if you want the disc drive of nearly $1,000 in Japan as well over
$800 here in the US $1,000 in Canada and now it might be having an effect on some of the games
that are coming out or some of the decisions that been happening with Sony is greatly affecting
what's happening in Japan which could spread to other regions if Sony is not careful so we're
going to talk about astrobot potentially flopping here we're going to go over some of the sales in
addition to some of the stuff that's happening with Japanese Gamers with the PS5 Pro because
it looks like they're not having it overall but before we get into all that what's good everyone
OJ here welcome back to another video please make sure you hit that like button subscribe if you
are someone new and click that notification Bell to get my videos first let's goad and jump first
into the astral bot sales then we'll get into what Japanese gamers are saying about the PS5 Pro
cuz they're putting up some pretty interesting things online so let's first talk about astrobot
because this is the new Big PlayStation game that came out and honestly I wasn't expecting any type
of massive numbers the comparisons to Mario have been rampant all over the internet and it's into
different reviews and people playing the game and that's completely fine but nobody was actually
expecting it to sell like Mario in Japan I know I wasn't expecting that however it sold far worse
than pretty much anybody thought even all the PlayStation accounts on Twitter and other places
felt that it do better than it did and they're desperate for digital sales numbers or whatever
the case is at this point but right now let's just go over the retail sales in Japan Japan famitsu
it's pretty much the only region that'll give Us Weekly sales numbers of games that come out
now it's not including digital but you have to realize that Japan is still more physical with its
games digital sell through ratios for a lot of the big games that come out is around 20 to 30% or so
based off of information that's out there so you can't really add too much with digital but you can
add maybe a bit more overall unless a publisher or developer comes out and says otherwise when
it comes to the digital sales so the fitsu it's from September 2nd 202 through September 8th
2024 and we have the top 30 sales it's pretty much dominated by Nintendo switch titles like
always I think about 26 or so of the 30 titles are Nintendo switch games but astrobot was number
two on the list not bad second bestselling game but what is actually bad is the amount sold for
a brand new Sony first party title and asot only sold 12,672 units on the PlayStation 5 which even
with the PS5 not having the biggest install base in Japan that is still really low a lot of people
felt that was pretty low myself included a lot of the accounts online you've got big accounts from
PlayStation guys like Mr Poo begging for sales when it comes to digital or if Sony can say
something because yes 12,000 units for this quality of game for this good of a game is really
low and that's well underneath what Sony's done I went back and looked at some of their other
games and all of their other titles for the most part that have launched in the last number of
years have done better than 12,000 units physical overall astrobot actually sold underneath about 3
years ago or so Ratchet and Clank are ried apart in Japan and that was about 14,000 units with a
much smaller installed base now there might be a better digital sales ratio of astrobot compared
to some of these other games but even if you were to give it a 100% sales ratio so let's just double
the sales of the physical that's still only about 24,000 or so so many people do feel that that is
incredibly low overall for astrobot now we did get a little bit of good news when it comes down to it
because in the UK astraal actually sold about 21% or so higher than Ratchet and Clank arip thearts
debut sales so at first it was a third lower but then Christopher drink came out and said no it's
21% higher now the install base once again in the UK is far bigger now at this point than it was
back then and obviously astrobot is a game of the year quality it's one of the best games that
Sony's put out but of course Ratchet and Clank definitely has a more bigger audience at least
at first year right ratch and Clank has been around for 20 years I don't expect Ratchet and
Clank to do way worse than astrobot or anything so to see that astrobot is a little bit above in
the UK is definitely good what you also have to realize here is that Ratchet and Clank ripped
apart didn't necessarily set the world on fire at launch with its sales it did ultimately end
up doing better but it definitely took discounts and PSN sales and all of that to get to where it
got to so it's not like Ratchet and Clank is like a big God of War or Spider-Man or Horizon type of
seller it's definitely well underneath those games and astropop barely did better than it in the UK
with a much bigger install base at this point than back in 2021 now going back to the Japanese sales
obviously 12,000 units is not very good but there was no push usually when you have a big brand
new game it helps push the hardware well after the multiple price increases in Japan the Japanese
Gamers just said we're sick of it we've had enough the PlayStation 5 only sold 11,817 units with a
brand new big release that launched people are not buying it with that price increase I think
that people are sick of what's happening with these price increases Sony's increased the price
multiple different times so I'm analyzing it just looking at the sales numbers looking at the charts
and what's going down and this has been a little bit of a trend but this is the lowest sales total
that I've seen for a week for Sony in quite some time but once again that's right after the price
increase I do feel that the playst 5 Pro which also was announced obviously this past week and
people have been going crazy about that Japanese gamers are also on board going crazy about that
making jokes and memes and things about it so one thing that I wanted to point out from a Japanese
gamer on Twitter they talked about the PlayStation 5 Pro and what you can get if you spent your money
elsewhere on a PS5 Pros so essentially they have this picture here you can get three PlayStation 4
four Pros for the price of a PlayStation 5 Pro in Japan you can get four Nintendo switches for the
price of a PlayStation 5 Pro in Japan you can get six Nintendo switch lights for the same price as
a PlayStation 5 Pro in Japan and I'm not even sure if they're including the disc drive in there
so it could be a little bit worse but I think at this point Japan has pretty much disconnected
with Sony you look at the sales numbers you look at stuff like astrobot and the fact that astrobot
is a franchise or is a character that's on every PlayStation 5 so you really can't say that people
didn't know about the character but obviously not everybody that picks up a PS5 is going to boot up
that astrobot game and it's not like Sony went out there and marketed the heck out of astrobot and
everything they were marketing freaking Concord and all that they were marketing that game cuz
they thought that was going to be the new hotness and sell play PlayStations and make them a lot of
money and it ended up completely flopping overall so I do think that that could have had a trickle
effect but I think that overall in Japan with the price increases with the Concord flop with the
situation that's been happening it might have taken a toll on astrobot it might have and I
think that the PlayStation 5 Pro announcement isn't really going to help either as some
Gamers just might be fed up and just once again just stick with Nintendo or maybe even go to
PC heck you might even see them just say man I'm just going to go back and play old school games
you have some people that are doing that so I do feel that that's what's happening here and that's
why we're seeing it's just like a combination of things that why we're seeing the low sales for
games in Japan with the PlayStation 5 and with the astrobot game I think that it just kind of all
kind of connects together with the price increases with the outrageous price PlayStation 5 Pro people
are saying wait a minute we can get better deals doing some something else overall Nintendo still
has pretty good deals with the switch light and with the switch switch OLED and all of the games
as you can see 20 something plus games 26 games or so Nintendo switch titles on the top 30 so it's
going to be interesting to see what's going on here but I also want to point out this and I think
that this one for me kind of hits right there in the fields because if you go back and look at
Gravity Rush 2 this was Sony Japan Studio their first first party studio for Sony that Sony did
shut down Gravity Rush 2 actually opened up at 77,000 unit sold now obviously it was probably a
higher price title to make than astrobot I'm not really sure how much compared to each other but
at the same time I saw a lot of people saying that Japan Studio they can't sell games it's better
that it's teamobi they did a better job with it but looks like Gravity Rush 2 is definitely going
to be a better seller right now at this point now longterm astrobot could but I still feel that Sony
Japan Studios should have had an opportunity to make a game on PlayStation 5 Sony Japan Studio
would be perfect for them right now to put out that midsize SL big type of game maybe it doesn't
have that huge massive five sixe development cycle like a lot of son's games are having down and it
provide a lot of variety and that's the biggest thing that people are saying with astrobot the
biggest thing that I love about astrobot like I said I beat the game rolled the credits beat
all the stuff in the game and it's fantastic but the biggest thing is that it provides a
breath of fresh air for what we usually get from Sony so the fact that Sony Japan studi is not
around to capitalize on the PlayStation 5 and what that system can do with the haptics and everything
it's just really really a shame at this point but there's really not anything that we can do about
that but yeah it definitely seems like astrobot flopped here in Japan so I don't know what the
next step is for Sony if they're going to talk about sales numbers or anything like that I'm
guessing that the numbers are probably a bit soft and weak in most parts of the world but we still
need to get the digital right we still need to actually see what's happening in the US I do think
that it's sold considerably better here in the US and maybe North America than it did in Japan I
don't think it sold only 12,000 units but how much more did it do that's the interesting thing
that I'm not sure if Sony's ever going to announce usually Sony will announce sales numbers of
their games if they've done like Blockbuster units within the first number of days or weeks but
this probably hasn't done that so I don't think Sony's really going to announce anything or say
anything but yeah definitely seems like Japan is pretty much done with Sony at this point because
letting astrobot flop one of the best games that they've released this generation I think one
of the best games they've released of all time overall to let it kind of flop like this in Japan
and to essentially have PlayStation 5 sales kind of Flatline a bit here whereas the Nintendo switch
sold over 67,000 units as a system in its eighth calendar year I mean that's just crazy I've never
seen anything like that when it comes to the sales of this system in Japan people just said yeah
we're good and maybe shifted their sales over to the Nintendo switch people just saying I'm not
going to buy PS5 in Japan I'm just going to go buy Nintendo switch because of the price increases
and because of just some of the situations with the games maybe Sony Japan Studio being shut down
not getting a little bit more variety in terms of things I'm not really sure it's just interesting
to look and analyze but what are your thoughts on this guys when it comes to astrobot in Japan how
do you guys feel about the game and of course the sales numbers here let me know in the comment
section below all right guys that wraps it up for this video here thank you so much for watching
I do appreciate it please make sure you hit that like button subscribe if you're someone new click
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and we'll catch you guys till the next one peace