Japan: Sales up to 90 000 units

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Japan: Sales up to 90 000 units

Eager Japanese gamers finally got their hands on the very first PlayStation 3 units over the weekend. The launch resulted in more than 88,000 units sold, with the majority being the more expensive model. More within...

According to Enterbrain, publisher of popular Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, Sony sold 88,400 units of its PlayStation 3 console during the first two days in Japan. Of the total sold, Enterbrain said 54,600 (62 percent) were the more expensive 60 GB SKU, which retails for 60,000 yen in the country.

After having opened their doors on Saturday morning to thousands of gamers who had lined up for hours, by the end of the weekend almost all retailers had sold out of their allocated stock. Japan had only received a shipment of 100,000 units for launch, although one report from last month hinted that the actual shipment number may be lower than that.

It's not clear if Japan actually did receive 100,000 units, but if it did one has to wonder why the almost 12,000 remaining units didn't sell. The likely answer is that Japan did not get 100,000 and that the 88K sold is very close to the number shipped. Nevertheless, Enterbrain said that the Japanese launch could be viewed as a "promising start."

So what games were Japanese consumers picking up with the PS3? Enterbrain reported that Ridge Racer 7 and Mobile Suit Gundam: Target in Sight were the two top-selling games at about 30,000 units each. Both titles come from Namco Bandai, making the publisher the early winner on the PS3 market.

Earlier this year, Sony explained that its initial PS3 launch in North American and Japan would have to be scaled back considerably to just 500,000 units total because of a blue laser diode shortage. The company remains confident, however, that it will hit its target of 2 million units shipped worldwide by the end of this year.

The PS3 will launch in the U.S. on November 17.

Source: Reuters (gamedaily)