After the recent price increase by Sony, the game console market in Japan reacted sharply and unequivocally: demand for expensive versions of PlayStation 5 is plummeting, while the more affordable model with language blocking is showing steady sales growth.
According to recent Famitsu data, only 840 units of PlayStation 5 Pro and 558 standard disc PS5s were sold in the first week of April. These figures look extremely weak against the backdrop of the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition in the Japanese version with language restriction — it became the leader among Sony consoles, selling more than 12 thousand units in the same period. In total, all PS5 models reached 13,539 devices sold, but the vast majority were for the cheaper version.
The reason for this imbalance is obvious: after the price increase on April 2, the difference in cost between the models became almost twofold. The Japanese version of the digital PS5 costs ¥55,000 (about $344), while the regular Digital Edition is already priced at ¥89,980, the standard PS5 at ¥97,980, and the flagship PS5 Pro at ¥137,980. Under such conditions, buying multilingual versions loses its meaning for most consumers.
Console sales since the beginning of April in Japan look like this (sales for all time):
- Switch 2 — 59,543 (5,011,059)
- PS5 Digital Edition — 12,141 (1,248,515)
- Switch OLED — 7,468 (9,526,329)
- Switch Lite — 4,807 (6,903,964)
- Switch — 4,067 (20,0271,045)
- PS5 Pro — 840 (341,548)
- PS5 — 558 (5,910,474)
- Xbox Series X — 525 (325,952)
- Xbox Series X DE — 278 (29,362)
- Xbox Series S — 129 (341,622)