The future of looking very interesting right now for home consoles as new versions of them will be releasing soon. Starting on September 1st, all 500GB Xbox One SKUs will drop price from 36.729 yen (about $320) to 29.980 yen (about $260), on that day a standalone 1TB SKU will be released as well for 32.378 yen (about $285). Soon after Sony will have an event in New York where the likely PlayStation 4 Slim and Neo will be released with both probably releasing on 2016, Slim in particular, shortly after; and maybe even a price cut too.
So, before all the new interesting consoles release I thought it was a good idea to look back at all the previous bundles, SKUs and price cuts that the Wii U, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have gotten so far.
This will be in chronological order of course, combining all 3 systems, also it’ll only be systems that were sold at retailers not the manufacturers online stores, Sony for instance sells limited edition PS4 all the time, but they’re just regular systems with a face plate, as they’re only sold at their stores we have no data for them and there are so many that this article would be endless if we include them all.
So with that out of the way, let’s get started. Our journey begins back in 2012 with the launch of Wii U.
There were three SKUs at launch, a black 32GB system, a white 32GB system and a black 32GB system bundled with Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate HD Edition, for whatever reason Nintendo didn’t bundle Nintendo Land with any SKU unlike in the west.
All SKUs sold 308.570 units on their opening week, we don’t have data for each separately, but we can assume the bestselling SKU was the one with Monster Hunter as the game sold 110.149 units and was the best proposal of the Wii U’s launch line up. All of these SKUs are now discontinued.
By March 2013 the Wii U situation had gone dire, despite a somewhat impressive launch sales died out extremely fast and there were barely any games coming within the upcoming months, the biggest game until fall was Dragon Quest X which had been released on Wii a few months prior to the launch of Wii U, the Wii version had sold over 600k units.
During the launch week of the game hardware sales doubled, from 10.172 to 21.502 a disappointment performance for both the bundle and the game that sold some 30k units on its own. The bundled was discontinued shortly after.
Later that year Nintendo released a white 32GB Wii U, only in Japan, this SKU effectively replaced the 8GB model. It’s still in production today.
During late September 2013, as Wii U sales were not improving Nintendo dropped the price of Wii U and released a The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD bundle, in the west, neither of them happened in Japan.
Rather than dropping the price Nintendo went for some very aggressive bundles in Japan, with what they called the Family Bundles, having 2 to 3 games on them with some other goods, the systems sold well and since their release until the end of 2013 there were over 400k systems sold. Both SKUs are now discontinued.
February 2014 saw the release of the PlayStation 4 in Japan, unlike previous consoles, this time Sony opted to release the PS4 in Japan after its launch in the US and major European countries. To make up for this they gave a free copy of Knack with every launch system, ever wonder why Knack sold so much in Japan? Well this is why.
Both SKUs sold 322.083 on launch, as the name suggest they were limited and have been discontinued.
Sometime during March, a standalone PS4 was introduced, possibly after sales of the launch SKUs started to die out.
During late March Nintendo released a new Wii U SKU to replace the Family Bundle sets, however this new Wii Sports Club bundle did nothing to stop the system’s dwindling sales. It’s been discontinued.
Right before Golden Week a new PS4 SKU was introduced, with the PS Camera.
Two new SKUs were introduced right at the time of the 2014 World Cup, bundled with FIFA 14. The bundles didn’t raise PS4 sales but they kept it steady during the event.
Early September saw the release of the Xbox One in Japan, there were four SKUs at launch which amounted to some 23.562 units sold at launch, Titanfall almost sold 1:1 with the system which means the bundles with Titanfall were the best selling at launch. Now, all SKUs but the Titanfall bundle are discontinued.
A week after the launch of the Xbox One saw the release of the white PS4 Destiny bundle. PS4 sales more than triple on the week of release, though this was more due to the white PS4 than the game itself. Fun fact, Destiny was published by SCE in Japan, it’s a PlayStation exclusive.
Later that month saw the release of a PS4 revision, same price as before.
A standalone white PS4 was release shortly after, it didn’t cause a large increase on sales.
Two new Xbox One bundles appeared during November, with Call of Duty and Halo releasing on the system, the system’s sales saw a big increase during release week, however as they were very poor it didn’t matter much and sales dropped shortly thereafter.
A new Wii U bundle surfaced on the same week, with the biggest game on the system, while the system saw an increase of sales it had a lackluster holiday compared to the year before it.
At the time of release of this bundle Nintendo was selling 8GB white Wii Us with no games included for 25.000 yen, I couldn’t find out when it was released.
There were three new PS4 SKUs right before the holidays, with one being the very limited 20th anniversary release. The GTA V and DQH bundles proved popular with over 115k PS4 units sold during December, as of this writing both games have sold over 300k units (DQH came out during February 2015).
A second Halo bundle was released during February 2015, this time a white console. Xbox One was already selling below 1.000 by its release and the bundle did nothing to help.
During March the most unique looking PS4 yet was released as a bundle with Final Fantasy Type-0 HD. It’s hard to measure the impact this bundle had in hardware sales as there were plenty of software moving hardware release at the time, including Bloodborne.
A special new Wii U bundled appeared during Golden Week 2015, a Xenoblade X bundle, hardware sales doubled during its release, the bundle was very limited and its now discontinued.
A new limited bundle was released alongside Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, the biggest PS4 game of the year. Before this Bloodborne was given away for free with new PS4 units and due to that sales were healthy during August, sales still tripled during its week of release.
A Super Mario Maker bundle was release alongside the game, with a limited run of it having a Mario amiibo included, this is likely Wii U’s bestselling bundle, it wasn’t discontinued until July 2016.
The first 1TB console was released in Japan in form of the Forza 6 bundle, the extremely low sales of the console didn’t saw a notable rise with its release.
PlayStation 4 saw a 5.000-yen price drop with the release of these SKUs, over half a million consoles were sold since the price drop until the end of the year and over 1.3m since then and the time of this writing.
The week after the PS4’s price drops the Xbox One saw a similar price drop as well, with a 5.000 yen cut without having a big increase in sales, the Halo 5 bundle didn’t do much for the game either.
Two weeks after the release of the Halo 5 bundle a new 1TB Tomb Raider bundle was released, the system sales remained steady but were still very poor.
The day after that the PS4 Call of Duty: Black Ops III bundle saw release in Japan, the system’s sales saw a 50% increase the week it came out and continued steady thorough the year, the game itself sold very well with over 350k units sold.
Less than week after that, the biggest console game of the year saw a bundle, with it and the Mario Maker bundle Wii U saw a very successful holiday selling 300k units on December alone.
Two new Xbox One SKUs saw release right before December, neither helped on raising the system’s sales by much.
A standalone 1TB PS4 saw release during the first week of December, it’s hard to say how it helped on hardware sales due to the other bundles.
The last game released on 2015 saw a bundle too, released during the biggest week of the year it’s difficult to say how much it sold, however as the game sold poorly it can be said that the bundle sold poorly as well.
Two new Xbox One bundles were released early in 2016, with a third Halo bundle and a new The Division bundle, they bundle didn’t help, hardware sales were still very poor.
Wii U’s biggest release of 2016 also saw a bundle, the system was supply constrained before its release and saw a big increase in sales due to it.
A new white Xbox One was released with Quantum Break at the end of March, once again, hardware sales were still poor.
The most recent PS4 bundle to be released so far, the limited edition of Uncharted 4 was released alongside the game, the system’s sales saw a notable increase during release. In Japan, Uncharted 4 is the bestselling game in the series.
And finally, the most recent SKU released was the second Splatoon bundle which was released on July, Wii U’s sales saw a big increase during its release, this bundle effectively replaced the Mario Maker bundle.
As time progresses, new SKUs are introduced and sales for older ones drop those are eventually discontinued, obviously most of the SKUs listed here are no longer in production, so what are?
Well at the time of this writing SKUs in production are:
For WiiU:
· The 2nd Splatoon Set and a 32GB white standalone set.
For PS4:
· The standalone white and black 500GB models and the black 1TB model.
For Xbox One:
· The Call of Duty, Quantum Break, The Division and most recent Halo bundles, as well as the Xbox One Elite and the latest Xbox One + Kinect bundles.
Hopefully this is for use to you, it was fun doing it, until next time.
References:
http://www.xbox.com/ja-JP/xbox-one/consoles
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/wiiu/hardware/lineup/list.html
http://www.jp.playstation.com/ps4/hardware/index.html?tkgpscom=PS4TOP-MENU_hardware_001
https://www.amazon.co.jp/
https://sites.google.com/site/gamedatalibrary/
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