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Report: PS Vita Japanese Launch Shipments May Top 700,000 Due To Strong Pre-Orders

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allan-bh

Member
PS Vita first shipment may top 700k

http://andriasang.com/comze0/vita_shipments/

AndriaSang said:
PlayStation Vita Shipments May Top 700,000 -- Report
12 min. ago / Anoop Gantayat / 0 Comments

A column at Mainichi Digital claims that PlayStation Vita's initial shipment may exceed 700,000 units.

The column's writer, Fumio Kurokawa, says that he's heard from various sources related to the matter that Sony originally planned an initial shipment of 500,000 units. However, due to pre-order demand, Sony added an additional 200,000 units.


Many retailers, including Tsutaya, Yodobashi Camera and Bic Camera, have said that you can purchase a system on launch day without a pre-order. A sudden 200,000 unit boost would explain the availability of stock.
 

TGMIII

Member
Holy shit that's crazy numbers. I still think SCEA/SCEE missed the boat by not launching for christmas, I think it'll really hurt them for the short term anyway.
 
Seems odd to me that they could have an extra 200K sitting around ready to sell at the drop of a hat like that. Really aggressive manufacturing and shipment targets I guess, thought they would go a lot more conservative after seeing what Nintendo went through.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Holy shit that's crazy numbers. I still think SCEA/SCEE missed the boat by not launching for christmas, I think it'll really hurt them for the short term anyway.

The 3DS is about to sell over half the PS3's Japanese LTD in 10 months.

I think Sony is prioritizing having adequate supply in Japan as that is where they are most threatened right now, and the only region they have a recent history of success in with handhelds.
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Does that mean it could sell 500k day one, if it's really due to the high number of preorders?
 

DieH@rd

Banned
This hopefully means that Vita is easy to produce. No crazy custom parts.

I wonder how much of them were preordered from outside of japan.
 

gogogow

Member
Best debut in Japan is PS2 with 630K I believe.

First week, but includes 2 days (PS2 out in a saturday)

Sony actually sold 980k in 2 days.

Gamespy PS2 Timeline said:
March 4th: PlayStation 2 goes on sale in Japan. Some stores have sold out through preorder, others open early and hand units out on a first-come, first-served basis. Along Akihabara, Japan's "Electric Town," stores with a few hundred units have lines of several thousand people. Sales begin at 12:00 a.m. and all PlayStation 2 console inventory is sold out before stores officially open at 10:00 a.m.

March 5th: Sony sells 980,000 PlayStation 2 consoles and runs out of inventory More than 500,000 of these consoles were sold through Sony's online site. By March 31, the number of consoles sold rose to 1.4 million -- constrained only by lack of inventory.

PS2 Timeline
 

TGMIII

Member
The 3DS is about to sell over half the PS3's Japanese LTD in 10 months.

I think Sony is prioritizing having adequate supply in Japan as that is where they are most threatened right now, and the only region they have a recent history of success in with handhelds.

Yeah I get why they've gone with the JP launch first and like you said given the history of the PSP everywhere else it makes sense but if they had marketed the vita right I still think it would have been a killer device for christmas. I guess time will tell how it goes, I'm really hoping it's a success worldwide though.
 

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
The 980k is the shipment figure.
Didn't expect such a big first shipment. We'll see if it pay off. Looking at games preorders, it doesn't seem like that... but who knows!
 

Key2001

Member
Sony actually sold 980k in 2 days.



PS2 Timeline


I thought there was a lot of complaining that Sony created an artificial shortage of PS2 units when it launched in Japan. 980k in the first 2 days and 1.4 million within the first month doesn't sound like much of a shortage to me(at least for launch). Something has to be off here somewhere.
 
Does that mean it could sell 500k day one, if it's really due to the high number of preorders?

Hm, depends.

If the original launch shipment was going to be 500k but pre-orders topped, say, 300k, they could have decided to up the launch shipment to ensure decent stock levels for the weeks following launch. I don't think it necessarily follows that a 700k launch shipment, increased from 500k, means a FW of 500K-plus.

EDIT:

And I do think it's a bit of a risky move - surely it would have been better to just satisfy demand and then keep on with small shipments? Nintendo had it bite them with the 3DS launch, and I doubt Sony want to be going into 2012 with headlines about retailer pricecuts etc. if they've been overambitious with shipments.
 
Silky Sony if true, they'd have been far better off with a 350k launch in 2 regions than a 700k in just one, sell out xmas launches are great for building mindshare as the Wii proved, for their sake if It's overstocked for the japanese launch I don't think it'll do them any favours, I don't think it'll be that bad a situation but can anyone else remember the massively overstocked European ps3 launch? Within days retailers had price slashed it by 50 quid
 
Silky Sony if true, they'd have been far better off with a 350k launch in 2 regions than a 700k in just one, sell out xmas launches are great for building mindshare as the Wii proved, for their sake if It's overstocked for the japanese launch I don't think it'll do them any favours, I don't think it'll be that bad a situation but can anyone else remember the massively overstocked European ps3 launch? Within days retailers had price slashed it by 50 quid

wouldn't they need way more than 350k for launching in US?
 

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
Hm, depends.

If the original launch shipment was going to be 500k but pre-orders topped, say, 300k, they could have decided to up the launch shipment to ensure decent stock levels for the weeks following launch. I don't think it necessarily follows that a 700k launch shipment, increased from 500k, means a FW of 500K-plus.

Yes, you could be right. Also because Sony could have thought of shipping a big number ONCE during December, to satisfy the demand entirely (obviously, if demand overdoes the shipment, they would ship again).

Tomorrow is the big day.
 

Thoraxes

Member
Obviously the launch will be fine.

I'm more interested in the followup sales for the next month after, when money/gift-giving events have passed.

Also, since i'm not terribly versed in Japanese culture, can anyone tell me how much money children typically get from otoshidama? Would it be enough for them to go out and purchase a games console, or help contribute a nice amoutn of funds towards one? (i'm guessing no)
 
Silky Sony if true, they'd have been far better off with a 350k launch in 2 regions than a 700k in just one, sell out xmas launches are great for building mindshare as the Wii proved, for their sake if It's overstocked for the japanese launch I don't think it'll do them any favours, I don't think it'll be that bad a situation but can anyone else remember the massively overstocked European ps3 launch? Within days retailers had price slashed it by 50 quid
I would think they waited on US/EU release because they wanted to be sure they could meet demand in Japan first, and they probably wanted US/EU to get a more refined firmware release (which may play PS1 games and so on). And if there are any hardware related issues, they rather deal with it in Japan since the US/EU won't be so forgiving.
 
That´s a big shipment. I hope it sells well tomorrow and Sunday.


I would think they waited on US/EU release because they wanted to be sure they could meet demand in Japan first, and they probably wanted US/EU to get a more refined firmware release (which may play PS1 games and so on). And if there are any hardware related issues, they rather deal with it in Japan since the US/EU won't be so forgiving.

That´s a good analysis and i agree. The Japanese are more forgiving than Europe and the US. If the VITA missteps int eh US and Europe, it won´t be easy to recover.
 

BurntPork

Banned
Well, there goes... pretty much everyone's predictions. :p

The 3DS only had ~400k at launch, so it looks like Vita will have a much bigger opening. Now, let's see if Sony judged the hype correctly. Vita may yet be a strong competitor against 3DS after all.
 

Ydahs

Member
Woah, that's a lot of Vitas.

To compare, are Sony's launches a lot more frontloaded than Nintendo's? I'd imagine they are based on the demographics, but the 3DS sold a lot less during its own launch (obviously launch period plays a role).
 

gogogow

Member
Woah, that's a lot of Vitas.

To compare, are Sony's launches a lot more frontloaded than Nintendo's? I'd imagine they are based on the demographics, but the 3DS sold a lot less during its own launch (obviously launch period plays a role).

The 3DS was ¥24.990 and not a hell lot of interesting games. It sold like crazy though after the price cut and when games like SM3DLand, MK7, MH3G came out.
 

Thoraxes

Member
Woah, that's a lot of Vitas.

To compare, are Sony's launches a lot more frontloaded than Nintendo's? I'd imagine they are based on the demographics, but the 3DS sold a lot less during its own launch (obviously launch period plays a role).

Definitely a mix of both.
 
Well, there goes... pretty much everyone's predictions. :p

The 3DS only had ~400k at launch, so it looks like Vita will have a much bigger opening. Now, let's see if Sony judged the hype correctly. Vita may yet be a strong competitor against 3DS after all.

in Japan, it's still possible
 
After thinking about it, if this rumor is true I really like how aggressive they are being with this launch. Sometimes the hype around high selling products can create a ton of free marketing. If they already have the product sitting around waiting to ship, might as well ship it out and hope to hit lightning in a bottle.

Got to be aggressive with Japan and worry about stock for the rest of the world later. Hand held device has to succeed there.
 

Varth

Member
Cannot even fathom the size of the tech fuck ups that are gonna come out on the launch units with an hardware so advanced. Expecially on those last 200.000 units ^^'
 
That's a lot of Vitas that'll be left on the shelves!
/Joke

Sounds like a good solid start (assuming that the sales live up to the preorders/shipment)

Cannot even fathom the size of the tech fuck ups that are gonna come out on the launch units with an hardware so advanced. Expecially on those last 200.000 units ^^'

The innards should be fine (standard off the shelf Smartphone hardware for the most part), but I bet that there will be problems with analog sticks breaking that'll be fixed by the time it comes out in the US/EU...
 
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