Not all Japanese PS3 owners bought a game
Not to anyone's surprise, ice cubes in Hades couldn't finish melting by the time the PS3 sold out in Japan. All one of you who took those ten billion-to-one odds at Vegas just lost your money. There is one big surprise however: PS3 games aren't popular.
Famitsu-owned Enterbrain crunched a few numbers and found out that the tie-in ratio was a measly 0.98. That means out of the 80,400 PS3 consoles sold, only 78,792 pieces of software went out retailer doors to keep them company (1,608 or more people didn't bother buying any software). Oops. While the PS3 is slightly better than the .91 the 360 pulled, both of them are embarrassed by the original Xbox and its 1.45 tie-in ratio (we all know how well poorly the Xbox did in Japan).
If these numbers continue, Sony's decision to make the PS3 a "cheap Blu-ray player/computer" could bite them in the end. If those other 1,608 (or more) consumers are screaming "Look, Ma! No game!", we have to assume they're using the PS3 to watch movies -- or using its various non-revenue generating functions; we can't imagine anyone buying a PS3 to just look at (shininess be damned). Sure, they're still selling consoles, but game developers will see little reason to support a platform whose user-base isn't interested in buying software.
