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Famitsu Sales: 9/20/21 - 9/26/21

reksveks

Member
Famitsu has published its estimated physical game software and hardware sales data for Japan for the week of September 20, 2021 to September 2,6 2021.

Lost Judgment was the highest selling new release of the week, opening at 111,852 copies on PlayStation 4 and 33,151 copies on PlayStation 5 for a total of 145,003 retail copies sold. It was followed by the Switch version of Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot + A New Power Awakens Set, which opened at 42,074 sales.

On the hardware side, the Switch family sold 46,297 units, the PlayStation 5 family sold 26,481 units, the Xbox Series family sold 2,643 units, and the PlayStation 4 family sold 1,641 units. Next-generation consoles continue to face stock issues.


Get the full sales charts below.

Software Sales (followed by lifetime sales)

  1. [PS4] Lost Judgment (Sega, 09/24/21) – 111,852 (New)
  2. [NSW] Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot + A New Power Awakens Set (Bandai Namco, 09/24/21) – 42,074 (New)
  3. [PS5] Lost Judgment (Sega, 09/24/21) – 33,151 (New)
  4. [NSW] WarioWare: Get It Together! (Nintendo, 09/10/21) – 21,909 (126,317)
  5. [PS4] Tales of Arise (Bandai Namco, 09/09/21) – 15,224 (199,668)
  6. [NSW] Minecraft (Microsoft, 06/21/18) – 12,937 (2,204,855)
  7. [NSW] Ring Fit Adventure (Nintendo, 10/18/19) – 12,489 (2,843,132)
  8. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo, 04/28/17) – 12,108 (4,063,247)
  9. [NSW] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Nintendo, 12/07/18) – 8,185 (4,431,232)
  10. [NSW] Momotaro Dentetsu: Showa, Heisei, Reiwa mo Teiban! (Konami, 11/19/20) – 7,104 (2,381,682)
Rankings 11 to 30 will be announced on October 1.

Hardware Sales (followed by lifetime sales)

  1. Switch – 36,294 (17,133,268)
  2. PlayStation 5 – 22,545 (898,102)
  3. Switch Lite – 10,003 (4,071,757)
  4. PlayStation 5 Digital Edition – 3,936 (174,094)
  5. PlayStation 4 – 1,641 (7,811,573)
  6. Xbox Series S – 1,601 (32,624)
  7. Xbox Series X – 1,042 (62,385)
  8. New 2DS LL (including 2DS) – 588 (1,174,071)
Source: Famitsu Sales: 9/20/21 – 9/26/21 - Gematsu
 

reksveks

Member
HUaVmm9.png

Weekly Sales

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PS splits

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Xbox Splits

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All console %

VyNnESE.png


Xbox and Playstation %
 
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AlexxKidd

Member
Both Lost Judgement and Kakarot did better than I expected. It's a strong week.


One of those is a PS4 game :p
No, both of those are PS5 games as well. But I realize some people need the obvious stated to them. As a PS5 owner, I can buy the PS4 version and have access to the game on PS4 and PS5 as the game features a free next-gen upgrade. A chart like that can't tell you that. With that, yes, it is the same game, so in that sense, I'd say two PS5 games in the Top 5 as Tales of Arise works as stated above.
 
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Woopah

Member
No, both of those are PS5 games as well. But I realize some people need the obvious stated to them. As a PS5 owner, I can buy the PS4 version and have access to the game on PS4 and PS5 as the game features a free next-gen upgrade. A chart like that can't tell you that. With that, yes, it is the same game, so in that sense, I'd say two PS5 games in the Top 5 as Tales of Arise works as stated above.
But as you yourself said there's a PlayStation 5 version and a PlayStation 4 version. If you were to say there are three PlayStation SKUs in the top 5 then yes that would be correct.
 
Ps5 stock getting good again. Hopefully it continues to improve!

Still like rocking horse shit in the shops. Have never ever seen one except in a second hand shop, with a 50% scalper's mark-up.

It's going to be depressing if the Switch OLED is the same, and the only way to get a console from all three manufacturers is to give on and buy a pricey used one.
 

noshten

Member
Famitsu Top 50 2021
  1. [NSW] Monster Hunter Rise (Capcom) - 2.326.057
  2. [NSW] Momotaro Dentetsu (Konami) – 1.141.691
  3. [NSW] Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury - 890.581
  4. [NSW] Ring Fit Adventure – 756.127
  5. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 606.064
  6. [NSW] Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 509.755
  7. [NSW] Minecraft (Microsoft) – 501.934
  8. [NSW] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 418.058
  9. [NSW] Pokemon Sword / Shield + Expansion Pass (Pokemon Co.) - 314.640
  10. [NSW] Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics - 284.453
  11. [NSW] Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town (Marvelous) – 281.140
  12. [NSW] New Pokemon Snap (Pokemon Co.) - 276.800
  13. [NSW] Super Mario Party - 265.205
  14. [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD - 263.674
  15. [NSW] Splatoon 2 - 260.424
  16. [NSW] Miitopia - 248.003
  17. [NSW] Game Builder Garage - 239.178
  18. [NSW] Monster Hunter Stories 2 (Capcom) - 227.554
  19. [PS4] Tales of Arise (Bandai Namco) - 199.668
  20. [NSW] Baseball Spirits 2021 (Konami) - 193.921
  21. [PS4] Resident Evil Village (Capcom) - 191.983
  22. [NSW] Crayon Shin-Chan (Neos) - 183.733
  23. [NSW] Mario Golf: Super Rush - 182.579
  24. [PS4] NieR Replicant (Square Enix) - 158.265
  25. [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 149.822
  26. [NSW] Bravely Default II (Square Enix) – 136.091
  27. [NSW] Rune Factory 5 (Marvelous) - 127.968
  28. [NSW] Yu-Gi-Oh! Rush Duel (Konami) - 127.221
  29. [NSW] WarioWare: Get It Together! - 126.317
  30. [NSW] Fitness Boxing 2 (Imagineer) - 115.375
  31. [NSW] New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe - 114.445
  32. [PS4] Lost Judgement (Sega) – 111.852 NEW
  33. [NSW] Dragon Quest XI S (Square Enix) - 107.807
  34. [NSW] Super Mario 3D All-Stars - 104.782
  35. [NSW] Pikmin 3 Deluxe - 103.273
  36. [NSW] Super Mario Maker 2 - 97.715
  37. [NSW] Tsukihime (Aniplex) - 85.439
  38. [NSW] Human Fall Flat (Teyon Japan) - 85.310
  39. [PS4] Tsukihime (Aniplex) - 80.042
  40. [NSW] Super Mario Odyssey - 74.949
  41. [NSW] Little Nightmares II (Bandai Namco) - 72.796
  42. [PS4] Samurai Warriors 5 (Koei Tecmo) - 72.727
  43. [NSW] Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum 'n' Fun! (Bandai Namco) - 70.964
  44. [NSW] Fishing Spirits (Bandai Namco) - 68.180
  45. [PS5] Resident Evil Village (Capcom) - 67.000
  46. [NSW] Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin (Marvelous) - 65.620
  47. [NSW] Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (Koei Tecmo) - 62.119
  48. [NSW] Samurai Warriors 5 (Koei Tecmo) - 61.350
  49. [PS5] Tales of Arise (Bandai Namco) - 60.106
  50. [NSW] Minecraft Dungeons (Microsoft) - 59.256
TOTAL: 13.330.013
NSW TOTAL: 12.388.370 (93%)
PS4 TOTAL: 814.537 (6.1%)
PS5 TOTAL: 127.106 (0.9%)

This marks the highest market share PS Ecosystem has had this year at 7%, with the imminent launch of OLED October, November & December will be months where Switch evergreens will greatly accelerate due to higher hardware sales. The Switch also has a stronger line-up compared to last year so software is likely to easily surpass 20 million across the Top 50 titles this year.
The PS4 version of Tales of Arise becomes the best selling game on the PS Ecosystem ranking 19 overall, its looking like it will record less than 220K sales before it exits the Top 30.
Lost Judgement on the PS4 debuts at #32 this week.

Top 10 Publishers:
  1. Nintendo - 5.972.204 (44.8%)
  2. Capcom - 2.812.594 (21.1%)
  3. Konami - 1.462.833 (11%)
  4. Pokemon Co - 591.440 (4.4%)
  5. Microsoft - 561.190 (4.2%)
  6. Marvelous - 474.728 (3.6%)
  7. Bandai Namco - 471.714 (3.5%)
  8. Square Enix - 402.163 (3%)
  9. Koei Tecmo - 196.196 (1.5%)
  10. Neos - 183.733 (1.4%)
In terms of the Top 10 Publishers, Bandai has almost caught up to Marvelous, but with the PS5 version of Tales of Arise likely exiting the Top 50 in the coming weeks they would need Super Robot Wars 30 to perform well in order to get a chance to overtake them in the ranking.
Elsewhere Sega is still outside the Top 10 and is unlikely to make the ranking within the Top 50 this year.
 
Xbox is doing better than expected in Japan but we shouldn't get carried away. Even 750,000 would be a major success for them.

Xbox will be around 150k at the end of this year.
Half a million more over the next 6 to 7 years is really not much after the initial trajectory.

But yes, even 750k would be a success.
 

zedinen

Member
2001 vs 2021

M4uSNpl.jpeg




Concerns regarding PS5 software sales divert the attention away from the real issues such as Japan's shrinking console market, the hundreds of millions of Japanese games sold overseas across high end systems, mobile gaming's dominance over Japan and the implications for Nintendo.


Global demand for Japanese games is booming, thereby more than offsetting the decline in Japan

Koei Tecmo FY2010 (Jap 3.35M / Tot 5.76M)
Koei Tecmo FY2020 (Jap 2.11M / Tot 10.11M)

Bandai Namco FY2008/3 (Jap 11.75M / Tot 24.21M)
Bandai Namco FY2021/3 (Jap 3.46M / Tot 41.49M)

Sega Sammy FY2009 (Jap 4.23M / Tot 29.47M)
Sega Sammy FY2021/3 (Jap 1.66M / Tot 41.77M)

Capcom FY2008/3 (Jap 7.1M / Tot 15.6M)
Capcom FY2021/3 (Jap 5.7M / Tot 30.1M)

Square Enix FY2016/3 (Jap 5.11M / Tot 22.78M)
Square Enix FY2021/3 (Jap 6.30M / Tot 49.90M)



High end systems dominate sales of Japanese games, despite having low market share in Japan

Notable examples (PS4, XBO, PC)

RE series 34.1M

MHW 17.3M


DARK SOULS III 10M

FFXV 8.9

ICEBORNE 8.2M

DMC series 7.4M


TEKKEN 7 7M

NIER series 7M

NIOH series 6M

SFV 5.8M

FFVIIR 5M

KH3 5M

DEATH STRANDING 5M

SEKIRO 5M

TALES OF series 5M (since May '19 20M ---- 25M )

PERSONA 5 3.2M

YAKUZA series 3M (2018 - Nov 2020)

TRAILS series 2.5M (since June '18: 3.5M ---- 6M)

CODE VEIN 2M

PERSONA 5 ROYAL 1.8M

JUDGMENT 1M


The Japanese industry has sidelined Japan's console market

On the one hand, mobile games tailored to match the needs of Japanese consumers and, on the other hand, traditional games targeted at a global audience tend to deliver higher ROI than games catered to Japanese console gaming audience.


Third Parties jumped ship from Nintendo to competition in droves

NDS 3rd Party Ratio (JP 56% US 72%)

NSW 3rd Party Ratio (21%)
 

Bodomism

Banned
Horrible sales numbers for Kojima game

[PS5] Death Stranding Director’s Cut (SIE, 09/24/21) – 2,658 (New)

For comparison, Ghost Of Tshushima Director's cut sold around 24K in its opening week.
 

Woopah

Member
2001 vs 2021

M4uSNpl.jpeg




Concerns regarding PS5 software sales divert the attention away from the real issues such as Japan's shrinking console market, the hundreds of millions of Japanese games sold overseas across high end systems, mobile gaming's dominance over Japan and the implications for Nintendo.


Global demand for Japanese games is booming, thereby more than offsetting the decline in Japan

Koei Tecmo FY2010 (Jap 3.35M / Tot 5.76M)
Koei Tecmo FY2020 (Jap 2.11M / Tot 10.11M)

Bandai Namco FY2008/3 (Jap 11.75M / Tot 24.21M)
Bandai Namco FY2021/3 (Jap 3.46M / Tot 41.49M)

Sega Sammy FY2009 (Jap 4.23M / Tot 29.47M)
Sega Sammy FY2021/3 (Jap 1.66M / Tot 41.77M)

Capcom FY2008/3 (Jap 7.1M / Tot 15.6M)
Capcom FY2021/3 (Jap 5.7M / Tot 30.1M)

Square Enix FY2016/3 (Jap 5.11M / Tot 22.78M)
Square Enix FY2021/3 (Jap 6.30M / Tot 49.90M)



High end systems dominate sales of Japanese games, despite having low market share in Japan

Notable examples (PS4, XBO, PC)

RE series 34.1M
MHW 17.3M


DARK SOULS III 10M

FFXV 8.9

ICEBORNE 8.2M
DMC series 7.4M


TEKKEN 7 7M

NIER series 7M

NIOH series 6M

SFV 5.8M

FFVIIR 5M

KH3 5M

DEATH STRANDING 5M

SEKIRO 5M

TALES OF series 5M (since May '19 20M ---- 25M )

PERSONA 5 3.2M

YAKUZA series 3M (2018 - Nov 2020)

TRAILS series 2.5M (since June '18: 3.5M ---- 6M)

CODE VEIN 2M

PERSONA 5 ROYAL 1.8M

JUDGMENT 1M


The Japanese industry has sidelined Japan's console market

On the one hand, mobile games tailored to match the needs of Japanese consumers and, on the other hand, traditional games targeted at a global audience tend to deliver higher ROI than games catered to Japanese console gaming audience.


Third Parties jumped ship from Nintendo to competition in droves

NDS 3rd Party Ratio (JP 56% US 72%)

NSW 3rd Party Ratio (21%)
You've made several point here so I'll reply one by one:
  • Japan's shrinking console market - The Japanese market is currently growing not shrinking. It definitely had rough patch in the 2010s, but its looking a good place now. 2021 and 2022 should be further years of growth (followed be decline in 2023 until whenever Nintendo's next system launches). Like other countries I don't think physical sales will ever reach the heights of 15/20 years ago but growth form today is definitely possible
  • Global demand for Japanese games is booming, thereby more than offsetting the decline in Japan - Correct. Japanese games are doing well globally and thankfully we're mostly past the days of having to wait for long localisations. I think the next step is seeing more Japanese games appear on PC
  • Mobile gaming dominance - Mobile games have been huge around the world for a while now. It hasn't prevented Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft from being successful so far and I don't see that changing at all in the near future.
  • High end systems - Japaneses games do very well on PlayStation and PC, less so on Xbox.
  • The Japanese industry has side-lined Japan's console market - In what way? Koei Tecmo's mobile games are made as well as their console games. Capcom's success around the globe hasn't stopped them releasing games in Japan
  • Third Parties jumped ship from Nintendo to competition in droves - Not true at all. Japanese third party support for Switch keeps increasing every year and there's no reason to think it won't continue being strong in the future. They'll still miss out on most AAA games and need to fix things with Bandai Namco Studios, but almost everything else is coming to Switch. The strength of Nintendo's first party sales doesn't decreases the success of third party's sales.

Overall I'm not sure what you think the 'implications for Nintendo' will be. As long third parties keep investing and succeeding on Switch I don't think it'll be an issue that they invest and succeed on PlayStation, PC and mobile as well.
 

Celine

Member
Software marketshare in Japan during 2020 (unit sales; Famitsu Game White Paper 2021):
1) Nintendo: 47.5%
2) Konami: 6.5%
3) Square Enix: 6.5%
4) Bandai Namco: 5.8%
5) Pokemon Co: 4.8%
6) SIE: 4.5%
7) Sega: 3.0%
8) Koei Tecmo: 2.9%
9) Capcom: 2.3%
10) Microsoft: 2.1%

Period covered: from December 30, 2019 to December 27, 2020


Nintendo's first-party (Nintendo+Pokemon Co): 52.3%
The remaining combined: 47.7%

wG6P0Ko.png
 
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Impotaku

Member
[*]Third Parties jumped ship from Nintendo to competition in droves - Not true at all. Japanese third party support for Switch keeps increasing every year and there's no reason to think it won't continue being strong in the future. They'll still miss out on most AAA games and need to fix things with Bandai Namco Studios, but almost everything else is coming to Switch. The strength of Nintendo's first party sales doesn't decreases the success of third party's sales.

Exactly this, i see people keep saying switch has poor 3rd party support & i have yet to see it. AAA sure there's no debating that but outside the AAA realm it's getting crazy amounts of games. Japan is my primary region i import from so i'm pretty clued up on whats coming & what's been released and each month there's been more & more titles. Hell my amazon japan preorders are at 2 pages of games at this moment.

When the switch was first released it did indeed have piss poor 3rd party support because after the disaster of the WiiU most 3rd parties were reluctant to take the risk so we got a small amount of bare bones token efforts from them released for it, but as the switch slowly took off & exploded in popularity it left all the 3rd parties playing catch up as they wanted access to the increasing larger playerbase. Even now smaller indie titles and budget games can shift pretty respectable numbers because there's so many switch owners out there, i really don't care too much about AAA stuff if there's the odd title i just pick it up on my ps4 i prefer quirky stuff/rhythm games/shmups which the switch now has in droves. I still find it unreal the amount of shmups the switch has & is still continuing to get.
 

Woopah

Member
Exactly this, i see people keep saying switch has poor 3rd party support & i have yet to see it. AAA sure there's no debating that but outside the AAA realm it's getting crazy amounts of games. Japan is my primary region i import from so i'm pretty clued up on whats coming & what's been released and each month there's been more & more titles. Hell my amazon japan preorders are at 2 pages of games at this moment.

When the switch was first released it did indeed have piss poor 3rd party support because after the disaster of the WiiU most 3rd parties were reluctant to take the risk so we got a small amount of bare bones token efforts from them released for it, but as the switch slowly took off & exploded in popularity it left all the 3rd parties playing catch up as they wanted access to the increasing larger playerbase. Even now smaller indie titles and budget games can shift pretty respectable numbers because there's so many switch owners out there, i really don't care too much about AAA stuff if there's the odd title i just pick it up on my ps4 i prefer quirky stuff/rhythm games/shmups which the switch now has in droves. I still find it unreal the amount of shmups the switch has & is still continuing to get.
Agree with all of this. At this point the platform strategy of players in the Japanese market is mostly well established:

  • Koei Tecmo, Marvelous, Nippon Ichi and others - Pretty much everything will be on Switch, with the vast majoirty coming to PlayStation too. Exception here is Falcolm which is PlayStation focused
  • Capcom - Splitting their development resources between PlayStation/Xbox focused projects and Switch focused projects, with everything coming to PC
  • Square Enix - Most AAA titles will be focused on PlayStation, with everything else being PlayStation/Switch/PC and sometimes Xbox, plus some Switch exclusives.
  • Bandai Namco - If its made by Bandai Namco Studios or From Software it won't come to Switch, if its developed by someone else it will (as a general rule of thumb)
There are however two wildcards:
  • Sega/Atlus - Good PlayStation support but spotty Switch support, with Atlus preferring to stay on 3DS late into its lifecycle. Will SMTV be the point Atlus jumps on the Switch in full, or is it just a one off paid for by Nintendo. Time will tell.
  • Konami - Quite a few Switch exclusives recently, but those are mostly been Japan-focused. Will Switch receive any of the upcoming MGS, Castlevania or Silent Hill titles? Again we will have to see.
 

noshten

Member
Nov 2020(PS5 Launch):
[PS4] Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War - 167.418
[PS5] Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War - 6.045

March 2021:
[PS4] Resident Evil Village - 191.983
[PS5] Resident Evil Village - 67.000

June 2021:
[PS4] Scarlet Nexus - 31.665
[PS5] Scarlet Nexus - 12.785

September 2021:
[PS4] Tales of Arise - 199.668
[PS5] Tales of Arise - 60.106

[PS4] Lost Judgement - 111.852
[PS5] Lost Judgement - 33.151

For the rest of the year there is a eight of games launching on the PS5, FIFA 22(Oct 1st), Far Cry 6(Oct 7th), Doki Doki Literature Club!(Oct 7th), Back 4 Blood(Oct 8th), Demon Slayer(Oct 14th), Monark(Oct 14th), Call of Duty Vanguard(Nov 5th), Battlefield 2042(Nov 19th) from these Demon Slayer, CoD: Vanguard & Battlefield 2042 are the ones that can push for 50K on the system but not a single one is guaranteed to reach those numbers. Call of Duty in it's heyday was doing 500K physical in Japan and this was barely 3 years ago, now you gotta wonder if it will manage 150K across it's two SKUs.

Next up is FIFA 22, if we look into it's performance 2010-2020 period, it's clear that EA has eaten into Japanese game maker's pie in terms of Sports titles. Especially when you consider they launch a game every year.

Top FIFA Games Japan(PS4)
  1. FIFA 18 - 56.924 / 125.712
  2. FIFA 19 - 62.710 / 105.047
  3. FIFA 17 - 52.544 / 86.462
  4. FIFA 20 - 43.751 / 74.142
  5. FIFA 14 - 9.780 / 70.622
  6. FIFA 21 - 39.152 / 60.129
  7. FIFA 16 - 22.444 / 34.571
  8. FIFA 15 - 16.998 / 21.768
Top FIFA Games Japan(PS3 & PSV)
  1. FIFA 13 - 34.721 / 81.920
  2. FIFA 12 - 22.470 / 61.567
  3. FIFA 14 - 29.982 / 51.363
  4. FIFA 11 - 21.682 / 42.564
  5. FIFA 15 - 21.559 / 34.698
  6. FIFA 16 - 10.778 / 16.413
  7. FIFA 17 - 12.343 / 15.788
  8. FIFA 18 - 2.601 / 2.601

Top FIFA Games(Switch)
  1. FIFA 18 - 12,896 / 122.998
  2. FIFA 19 - 16.275 / 89.875
  3. FIFA 20 - 9.593 / 58.347
  4. FIFA 21 - 11.990 / 40.136

FIFA 2010-2020
  1. FIFA 18 - 248.710
  2. FIFA 19 - 194.922
  3. FIFA 20 - 132.489
  4. FIFA 14 - 121.985
  5. FIFA 17 - 102.250
  6. FIFA 21 - 100.265
  7. FIFA 13 - 81.920
  8. FIFA 12 - 61.567
  9. FIFA 16 - 50.984
  10. FIFA 11 - 42.564
FIFA popularity peaked in 2017, which coincided with two factors
- Peak of the PS4 in Japan 2018
- Launch of the Switch

In Japan all Football games have been in decline, the actual peak of FIFA games was all the way back in 1998 on the PS2 with Road to World Cup '98 which sold 455K. Konami was a pretty big competitor with Winning Eleven which peaked back in 2004 with over 1 million sales. The same is the case for Level 5 who were the other major player on the market during the heyday of sports genre with Inazuma Eleven which also managed to surpass 1 million twice in 2009 and 2010. The last title in the franchise was in 2013 on the 3DS and managed 277K. It was one of the first Level 5 games announced for the Switch but the announced Inazuma Eleven Great Road of Heroes has been pushed back numerous times and I wonder if it will ever see the light of day - currently it has a launch date of 2023..

As long as EA, & Konami maintain their current direction they will continue to loose ground. It's still very surprising to me that despite their games doing very well on the Switch, Winning Eleven has never hit the system and is now a F2P game on the PS4/PS5 with meme status. I guess if Road to Heroes ever launches it might end up the best selling football game of the last decade it would just need 500K to do so by beating out Winning Eleven 2012 which is currently on top with 493K. Still considering how much time that game is being developed it's a wonder if it will actually end up seeing the light of day, it's probably one of the most far-out Switch titles... But that's Level 5 for you announce a game in 2016 and release it nearly a decade later for Rugby World Cup 2023. I'm guessing that it was originally just a mobile game and at the same time they were bombing on mobile, so that project was scrapped entirely and they restarted development from scratch at some point later and had a shadow crew working on it for the past 5 years. I'd love to be a fly on Level 5's office walls and really listen to what happened in the last decade, Megaton

Other Sport games:
Baseball also declined in this period but held up much better, but that's because Konami isn't releasing the same game every year. They have diversified their strategy to sell their games at close to full price for over an year via updates. eBaseball 2020 sold over 500K on the Switch and PS4 physically and it's not done selling on the Switch, it should sell at least 100K more copies this year taking the title to over 600K. Konami will probably launch another game next year taking advantage of the peak year on the Switch, thus going to a two-year cycle for the franchise. Baseball Spirits is well on it's way to at least 350K on the Switch this year and is likely to also get to over 500K long term. This holiday we also have Power Pro Kun Pocket R another Baseball themed game that should do very well for them in Japan.
The peak of Baseball games in 1999 with Konami's Pro Baseball '99 with just under 1 million sales.

Right now Konami is the top sports publisher in Japan, mainly due to the performance of their Baseball games. EA & Level 5 managed to eat some of their market share for a few years but neither company actually maintained enough consistency to challenge them at the top. The main way to challenge Konami is to create a Baseball game which is the most popular sport in the country and launch it on the Switch, however the only company which develops such titles is Sony. No Japanese company is really trying to compete in this area either, even thought I think there is ample opportunity to do so in my opinion. Power Pro Kun Pocket R if well received could be the title that helps them find their first million seller in the sports genre, we will see how it's received in Japan but so far pre-orders are trending for a a slightly smaller launch compared to Momotaro which launched with 345K sales, I expect at least 400K shipped to retailers, with 200K launch which is around 60% sell-through.
 

Nautilus

Banned
PS5 did better this week thanks to Lost Judgment. Still its rather low, but good to see some bigger numbers.

Even so, in light of what we learnt last week, that the hardware Sony numbers are not good, considering that a lot of the consoles are being scalped and sold outside the country.Hope Sony starts caring more about Japan.

Tales of Arise is holding surprisingly well!That is really pleasing to see.

Switch did horribly this week, but its because of the OLED, so its to be expected.

Once Dread and the OLED launches, its gonna be interesting to see how well they do.
 

Woopah

Member
Nov 2020(PS5 Launch):
[PS4] Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War - 167.418
[PS5] Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War - 6.045

March 2021:
[PS4] Resident Evil Village - 191.983
[PS5] Resident Evil Village - 67.000

June 2021:
[PS4] Scarlet Nexus - 31.665
[PS5] Scarlet Nexus - 12.785

September 2021:
[PS4] Tales of Arise - 199.668
[PS5] Tales of Arise - 60.106

[PS4] Lost Judgement - 111.852
[PS5] Lost Judgement - 33.151

For the rest of the year there is a eight of games launching on the PS5, FIFA 22(Oct 1st), Far Cry 6(Oct 7th), Doki Doki Literature Club!(Oct 7th), Back 4 Blood(Oct 8th), Demon Slayer(Oct 14th), Monark(Oct 14th), Call of Duty Vanguard(Nov 5th), Battlefield 2042(Nov 19th) from these Demon Slayer, CoD: Vanguard & Battlefield 2042 are the ones that can push for 50K on the system but not a single one is guaranteed to reach those numbers. Call of Duty in it's heyday was doing 500K physical in Japan and this was barely 3 years ago, now you gotta wonder if it will manage 150K across it's two SKUs.

Next up is FIFA 22, if we look into it's performance 2010-2020 period, it's clear that EA has eaten into Japanese game maker's pie in terms of Sports titles. Especially when you consider they launch a game every year.

Top FIFA Games Japan(PS4)
  1. FIFA 18 - 56.924 / 125.712
  2. FIFA 19 - 62.710 / 105.047
  3. FIFA 17 - 52.544 / 86.462
  4. FIFA 20 - 43.751 / 74.142
  5. FIFA 14 - 9.780 / 70.622
  6. FIFA 21 - 39.152 / 60.129
  7. FIFA 16 - 22.444 / 34.571
  8. FIFA 15 - 16.998 / 21.768
Top FIFA Games Japan(PS3 & PSV)
  1. FIFA 13 - 34.721 / 81.920
  2. FIFA 12 - 22.470 / 61.567
  3. FIFA 14 - 29.982 / 51.363
  4. FIFA 11 - 21.682 / 42.564
  5. FIFA 15 - 21.559 / 34.698
  6. FIFA 16 - 10.778 / 16.413
  7. FIFA 17 - 12.343 / 15.788
  8. FIFA 18 - 2.601 / 2.601

Top FIFA Games(Switch)
  1. FIFA 18 - 12,896 / 122.998
  2. FIFA 19 - 16.275 / 89.875
  3. FIFA 20 - 9.593 / 58.347
  4. FIFA 21 - 11.990 / 40.136

FIFA 2010-2020
  1. FIFA 18 - 248.710
  2. FIFA 19 - 194.922
  3. FIFA 20 - 132.489
  4. FIFA 14 - 121.985
  5. FIFA 17 - 102.250
  6. FIFA 21 - 100.265
  7. FIFA 13 - 81.920
  8. FIFA 12 - 61.567
  9. FIFA 16 - 50.984
  10. FIFA 11 - 42.564
FIFA popularity peaked in 2017, which coincided with two factors
- Peak of the PS4 in Japan 2018
- Launch of the Switch

In Japan all Football games have been in decline, the actual peak of FIFA games was all the way back in 1998 on the PS2 with Road to World Cup '98 which sold 455K. Konami was a pretty big competitor with Winning Eleven which peaked back in 2004 with over 1 million sales. The same is the case for Level 5 who were the other major player on the market during the heyday of sports genre with Inazuma Eleven which also managed to surpass 1 million twice in 2009 and 2010. The last title in the franchise was in 2013 on the 3DS and managed 277K. It was one of the first Level 5 games announced for the Switch but the announced Inazuma Eleven Great Road of Heroes has been pushed back numerous times and I wonder if it will ever see the light of day - currently it has a launch date of 2023..

As long as EA, & Konami maintain their current direction they will continue to loose ground. It's still very surprising to me that despite their games doing very well on the Switch, Winning Eleven has never hit the system and is now a F2P game on the PS4/PS5 with meme status. I guess if Road to Heroes ever launches it might end up the best selling football game of the last decade it would just need 500K to do so by beating out Winning Eleven 2012 which is currently on top with 493K. Still considering how much time that game is being developed it's a wonder if it will actually end up seeing the light of day, it's probably one of the most far-out Switch titles... But that's Level 5 for you announce a game in 2016 and release it nearly a decade later for Rugby World Cup 2023. I'm guessing that it was originally just a mobile game and at the same time they were bombing on mobile, so that project was scrapped entirely and they restarted development from scratch at some point later and had a shadow crew working on it for the past 5 years. I'd love to be a fly on Level 5's office walls and really listen to what happened in the last decade, Megaton

Other Sport games:
Baseball also declined in this period but held up much better, but that's because Konami isn't releasing the same game every year. They have diversified their strategy to sell their games at close to full price for over an year via updates. eBaseball 2020 sold over 500K on the Switch and PS4 physically and it's not done selling on the Switch, it should sell at least 100K more copies this year taking the title to over 600K. Konami will probably launch another game next year taking advantage of the peak year on the Switch, thus going to a two-year cycle for the franchise. Baseball Spirits is well on it's way to at least 350K on the Switch this year and is likely to also get to over 500K long term. This holiday we also have Power Pro Kun Pocket R another Baseball themed game that should do very well for them in Japan.
The peak of Baseball games in 1999 with Konami's Pro Baseball '99 with just under 1 million sales.

Right now Konami is the top sports publisher in Japan, mainly due to the performance of their Baseball games. EA & Level 5 managed to eat some of their market share for a few years but neither company actually maintained enough consistency to challenge them at the top. The main way to challenge Konami is to create a Baseball game which is the most popular sport in the country and launch it on the Switch, however the only company which develops such titles is Sony. No Japanese company is really trying to compete in this area either, even thought I think there is ample opportunity to do so in my opinion. Power Pro Kun Pocket R if well received could be the title that helps them find their first million seller in the sports genre, we will see how it's received in Japan but so far pre-orders are trending for a a slightly smaller launch compared to Momotaro which launched with 345K sales, I expect at least 400K shipped to retailers, with 200K launch which is around 60% sell-through.
Bandai Namco got over 100,000 with Pro Baseball Famista in 2018, but they only managed to do that because Konami wasn't supporting Switch with mainline baseball titles yet.
 

noshten

Member
Bandai Namco got over 100,000 with Pro Baseball Famista in 2018, but they only managed to do that because Konami wasn't supporting Switch with mainline baseball titles yet.

Totally forgot about that game, it was a surprising result for the franchise for sure, best result since 2007, but I don't think they cannot compete with Konami without investing more into the game and its marketing.




I'm expecting a big week for Ring Fit Adventure when the OLED launches and a higher baseline until the end of the year, could very well be a 500K+ Quarter for the game in Japan. Demand continues to be high but most people that want it have learned to buy when stock arrives instead of paying 30-40% more to resellers.
 
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Kerotan

Member
This thread is hilarious. You mention good ps5 sales and you're told it's all scalpers. You mention the reason for low software sales is scalpers and you're told they don't buy that story.

Neogaf.gif
 

Fafalada

Fafracer forever
As long as EA, & Konami maintain their current direction they will continue to loose ground.
If I were to guess EA cares about console Fifa sales in Japan (and rest of Asia) about this much:
reservoir_dogs_violine.jpg


Just the PC version of Fifa Online alone made more in a single year in 'one' country than all of console versions combined across Asia did over the entire past decade. And that's still just a tiny fraction of what the IP makes globally across all its incarnations every year.
 

noshten

Member
If I were to guess EA cares about console Fifa sales in Japan (and rest of Asia) about this much:
reservoir_dogs_violine.jpg


Just the PC version of Fifa Online alone made more in a single year in 'one' country than all of console versions combined across Asia did over the entire past decade. And that's still just a tiny fraction of what the IP makes globally across all its incarnations every year.

I don't think EA cares, just discussing the decline of Football games in general in Japan and they are the publisher with the biggest Football game WW and upcoming FIFA 2022 that will show up in next week's chart.



This is major news, as GEO is a major player on the retail game market in Japan with over 1000 stores. Even though hardware wise Xbox X/S are ahead of X1 by a decent margin only 1700 physical software has been sold making it not an especially attractive item for retailers who make most of their profits from software rather than hardware. Wonder if other major chains in Japan follow suit.
 
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Nautilus

Banned
This thread is hilarious. You mention good ps5 sales and you're told it's all scalpers. You mention the reason for low software sales is scalpers and you're told they don't buy that story.

Neogaf.gif
Well Kerotan, I'm still waiting you to show me the source I asked of you last thread.

Unless you decided to ignore it?
 
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