PS3 sales 165k in two days in UK - but what does that mean?

In two days, 165,000 PS3 units have been sold in Great Britain. Record breaking, they say. Kevin and I decided to test that theory, but seeing what happened in Japan on the first two days, both comparing the sales figures, population of the two countries, and number of games at the launch.

Population:
60,609,153 (UK) is 47% of 127,463,611 (JAP)
UK has almost half the population of Japan.

PS3 Hardware Sales:
81,639 (JAP PS3) is 49% of 165,000 (UK PS3)

Launch Titles:
However, the PS3 launched in the UK with 22 titles, and only 5 in Japan. 5 is 23% of 22.

There are two theories to this:

1. The UK sales are a product of having more games, and this makes the UK sales figures less impressive.
   
2. Same as the above; however, this shows that the PS3 still has hope if it just gets enough games, because games drove the UK sales.

Background Data:
UK sold about 51% more PS3's than Japan did in its two day launch window. In order to match the UK sales, Japanese gamers would have had to buy about 84,150 more PS3's; however, that doesn't take into account there are twice as many Japanese, just how much it would take to make each country's sale ratios equal.

If UK has half the pop of Japan, and bought half more PS3's than Japan... then that would mean that Japan would have to by TWICE (100%) more PS3's to match the "Desiration Factor" of the PS3 in the UK. We aren't factoring in price, because while we think the UK PS3 is more expensive than the Japanese PS3 (British pound versus Japanese yen), we're not sure.

Europe World Population: source
Japan Population: source
Great Britain Population: source
Japan PS3 Sales in first 2 Days: source
Japan PS3 Launch Titles: source

One Man Understood What Market He Was In

Satoru Iwata is CEO of Nintendo of Japan, the mother company of Nintendo of America, and the lead behind the Wii.

What he said in a recent interview which named him one of the world's leading CEO's, was telling:

"We are not fighting against other companies—we are fighting against ignorance of video games."

The RIAA is guilty of more than suing American families, it is guilty of not understanding what market it is in.

"The RIAA is the "recording industry" and they represent the interests of the record labels who, while they may claim are in the music business, appear to believe they're really in the "music selling business" rather than (as they really are) the "music entertainment business." They believe their job is to distribute music, promote it, and get people to buy it. They make money by keeping that system closed and locked down. If they recognized they were really in the "entertaining people with music business" they should only be ecstatic about new technologies and services that make their job easier."

This is profound because there is a similar fallacy in the Gaming Industry has: that great graphics motivates gamers, rather than appeases them. This is why games come out early and buggy - because distributors think that once a game's graphic engine is done, that is all that is needed. If a game has crappy graphics, we are not pleased, but if the game is itself is not fun, all the graphics in the world won't save it.

The ignorance of the Gaming Industry is that they think are in the Videogame Graphics Market, not the Videogame Entertainment Market, which is their actual market as evidenced by the Nintendo Wii.

Understanding that their market is not limited to hardcore gamers with large pockets is costing not only Sony, but Microsoft.

Games Crossing Borders

Real Real Estate Agents sell Fake Property
Ummm, Coldwell Banker sets up to sell Second Life property. "Fascinating, Captain." as Spock would say.

Movies become Games, again
300 Director co-founds Movie-to-Videogame development company.

Lets not forget, World of Warcraft is being made into a movie.

Next Generation News

Sony PlayStation 3

• PS3 selling well for price? Why February's NPD numbers don't condemn Sony's PS3.
• PS3 power shines a bit? The PS3 owns Folding@Home distributed processing.
• Sony wasn't trying to call Americans "cheap."
  

Nintendo Wii

• Wii has already passed 5 million mark in only 4 months - This puts the system at about half the install base of Microsoft's 360 in only 4 months.
• Wii bowls over retirees - My personal take is something different; note that throughout the article, only WiiSports is mentioned, yet the media carefully points out:
  

  While those rivals focused on cutting-edge graphics and high-tech bells and whistles, Nintendo focused on making game play easier, more intuitive and more appealing to a mass market.

  That bet paid off.

  Clearly, the Wii is the media's favorite child, not the XBOX 360 or PS3, which are machines they cannot understand.
  

Nintendo DS

• Heroes of Mana coming to the U.S. in Summer - it's a strategy game, not like Seiken Densetsu 3 or Secret of Mana (SD2) in the U.S.
• The one intelligent thing said in the Bright and Shiny Future of the PSP is about its competition: "DS may be missing a few voice-overs and some more expansive game concepts, but it has wooed away from consoles the epic Dragon Quest IX -- the shock that gamers expressed at that news showed that millions still didn't know that handheld gaming is no longer just Pokemon and Tetris."
  
  Everything else said is moronic, right down to "Sales have tipped in Nintendo's favor, but those numbers aside," uhh... what?

PC

• Guild Wars 2: Notable? This one has a persistent world, and still no monthly payments. Presumably they are trying to solve the "pure instancing outside of towns" problems that make it difficult to socialize, but ArenaNet folks don't give a clear answer of how the new system solves it, other than to make what you do in instances affect other areas and players.
• One item of interest is that the level cap will either be set at 100, or be removed altogether. I'd like to see the latter, at which point, I'd be interested to see how that works out.
• "Events will also offer a way for players of different levels to keep interacting in the persistent world - which is crucial, since right now, ArenaNet is planning a very high [100-plus], or possibly no level cap" Good idea; I hope they implement it well.
• My favorite might be "'Click to move' will be abandoned in favor of a more freedom-rich control scheme, including 'jumping, swimming, and sliding'."

There's a thread on this at Guild Wars Guru.