02-20-2012, 06:26 AM
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 | Pingu Carter of Mars | | Join Date: May 2011 Location: Barsoom
Posts: 2,399
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It should also be noted that the 3DS is one of only three platforms to have been able to sell 5 million units in Japan over a 12-month period since 1990. Quote:
The only systems to ever top 5m units in a single year in Japan since 1990 are DS and PS1. GBA, PS2, Wii, GB, PSP and SNES all topped out at around 4m units per year before dropping. N64, PS3, Saturn and others all topped out at around 2m or less in a year.
As a point of comparison, 3DS is only 2.85m units behind PS3, a system on the market for about five years and three months, after launching the week after PS3 had built a 6.35m base in Japan. It is thus entirely possible that 3DS will pass PS3 by the end of the year, which bodes very well for its future. Passing larger platforms, like Wii or PSP is still a bit uncertain, but again, those platforms never topped 5m units in a year, so it is fairly likely that 3DS will be at least as big as Wii in Japan (13m+) and it could be bigger than PSP too (19m+).
Vita, as a point of comparison, looks like it will be at 575,000 units in Japan through 10 weeks on the market. PSP launched in late 2004 (compared to Vita's late 2011 launch), but reached 600,000 units in six weeks. DS sold only 3.9m units in its first year on the market, compared to 5.0m for 3DS, even though DS was 750,000 units ahead of 3DS through ten weeks, so it will be interesting to see if Sony will consider a large price cut to get Vita back to at least PSP numbers. At the moment though, 3DS is tracking to have an 8-10m base in Japan by the end of 2012, while Vita might get to only 2m or so. In comparison, at the end of 2005, due to launching at the same time, DS was only at 5.6m in Japan to 2.7m for PSP.
Working on that data, and recognizing that Nintendo's share of software sales on DS was far greater than Sony's share on PSP, it made sense for publishers to support both platforms well, as the software markets looked to be close theoretically. However, once DS had solid Nintendo support and third party support in 2006-2007, it sold like nothing ever has in Japan - 15.6m in two years (150,000 per week on average for two years), while PSP was blunted to only 5m. If 3DS has a larger lead on Vita a year end 2012 than DS had on PSP at the end of 2005, say 9.2m to 2.2m rather than 5.6m DS systems to 2.7m PSPs, a similar thrashing could happen for a year or two, with 3DS topping Vita by 2:1 to 5:1 (in weeks both have been out, 3DS has topped Vita by a 3:1 margin). Publishers would presumably have an even harder time making Vita a major platform than they did with PSP though, as the Vita should launch slower than PSP in the West, as it has in Japan, even as development costs have gone up, making profitability much harder.
| The Japan Preview: 2/19/2012 Edition (3DS tops 5m units) - VGChartz |
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