The debate was fuelled by a Bloomberg article that pointed out sales of the game in Japan had dropped dramatically in the second week after launch, that initial sales had “lagged” behind previous games in the long-running role-playing series, and Square Enix itself was “grappling with weak momentum” on its flagship franchise.
Well, I don’t know what tf they were expecting. Because Sony decided to focus on the North American and European market, PS5s were almost impossible to find in Japan until a few months ago, and they’re still hard to get (the electronics store near me in a big part of Osaka only has PS5s with the disc drive for sale, because the digital edition is perpetually “sold out”). Steam sales in Japan are at their highest because a lot of folks gave up on getting a PS5 and switched to pc gaming. Add to that that PS5s only became relatively available just as prices for everything, including food, started shooting up. People couldn’t get PS5s, and they’re releasing a game just when people aren’t spending as much.
Personally, I got so frustrated with the PS5 stock situation and then the price increase when they had brought down shipping and production costs that I don’t even want a PS5 anymore and am now a pc gamer.
When someone asked YoshiP before the game came out about if it would come to PC, he said to get a PS5…when stores in Japan were still doing lotteries for the chance to buy one because they were so hard to get. So yeah. I don’t know what planet SE is on thinking it would have strong sales in Japan past the first week.
I hope whatever quiet timed exclusivity deal they signed with Sony was worth it.