We have some strange news for you now, on a really unexpected sequence of events over in Japan.
As we had reported two days ago, Sony suddenly announced they would be raising prices for PlayStation products in Japan. That isn’t just the PlayStation 5, but the controllers, PlayStation VR 2, and all the other accessories and products they are making and selling. Adam Evanko, a YouTuber who lives in Japan, explained that the price hikes are even worse than they look. While a currency conversion makes it look like the PlayStation 5 has risen in price to $ 550, Japanese consumers actually experience that as an increase to $ 800.
Niko Partners’ director of research and insights Daniel Ahmad shared his own insight on the situation. While he says that the weak Japanese yen is a factor in the price increase, there’s another factor as well. In Dan’s words:
“Another factor is likely to crack down on exports of Japanese consoles to other markets, especially China. Sony is looking to normalize prices globally to avoid selling a high quantity of units under production costs in a single market.
This will of course impact gamers in Japan. In the short term there will be a surge in purchases to avoid the price hike effective September 2. In the medium to long term, HD console gaming is becoming more unaffordable and the PS5 Pro will no doubt cost more.”
Now here’s where it gets interesting. Dan also revealed on Twitter a few days before that Black Myth Wukong has led to increased sales of the PlayStation 5 in China. Quoting Dan again:
“Sony Group Corp. ran a sales promotion for its PlayStation 5 in China for the week around Wukong’s launch and saw stores sell out of the console.”
So it may have not been intentional, but it certainly looks like Black Myth Wukong indirectly led to stock shortages, and price increases, of the PlayStation 5 in Japan. And here’s where it gets really wild.
As reported by Automaton Media, Japanese retailer Yodobashi ran out of stock of their PlayStation 5 consoles, and so they have stopped selling more of the product until the price increase goes into effect. But because of that, Japanese gamers have also taken to buying Xbox consoles as well.
In fact, Yodobashi saw the Xbox Series X jump up their sales chart, from being below the top 100 on August 28, to hitting number 8 on August 29. As of this writing, Yodobashi has also run out of the Xbox Series X.
The Xbox Series consoles are not that much cheaper than the PlayStation 5, but because of the price increase, they are a considerably cheaper option. It’s an incredibly ironic turn of events when one considers the issues going around Black Myth Wukong’s delayed release on Xbox Series X|S, and what we now know was a very real deal to sell the game with PlayStation 5 in China.
We’re not sure that Microsoft is going to be thanking Game Science for this, but maybe Game Science should focus on optimizing their game on all the platforms that they already released it on, and making sure there won’t be any such issues for the Xbox Series X|S.
