Not a single PS5 game in the TOP50?
For right now what I post is compilation of all the titles that managed to chart in the Top 30 thus far this year, but keeping in mind that games on the Switch have much stronger legs even outside of the Top 30.. well for the titles launched on the PS5 thus far(and there aren't that many) it would be very difficult to make the chart.
So far only
nine PS5 games have made Famitsu's Top 30. We know that
Miles Morales and
Demon Souls the two top selling games on the PS5 were below
36.5K units at the end of 2020 since they didn't make the Top 100 and
Gran Turismo was the 100th best selling game with
36.5K sales. The last update we got for these two titles was in Week 10(7 weeks ago) and both were around
40K sales, considering the last known numbers of
Miles Morales were around
24K in Week 48 of 2020, it's likely that it ended up around
30K EoY with
Demon's Souls in that ball-park. Meaning that up until Week 10 when they last charted they hold sold around
10K additional units outside the chart. Even with the best case scenario of
1K units per week since than we are talking about around
20K sales so far for them this year outside of the chart.
Since other games also happen to sell outside the Top 30 chart, the same exercise could be applied to them, for example
Jack Jeanne could be at
25K instead of
15K since it was sold out at launch and restocked several weeks later. There is also titles that we know are lesser evergreens like
Kirby &
Mario & Sonic that could very well have already surpassed
30K since they've been outside of the Top 30 since the start of the year.
This is the main reason I work with known numbers from Famitsu Top 30, unless they release their official figures.
The main conclusion is that PS5 is lacking compelling software for Japan during it's first half an year on the market and this is unlikely to change drastically in the near future.
Miles Morales, Demon's Souls, Black Ops - Cold War, Godfall, Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Outriders, Judgement are the games released so far that managed to chart and they have struggled to make and impact, but that's fairly expected as basically it's a bunch of ports of PS4 games or Western games and one Remake of PS3 game.
Famitsu might release the Top 100 half way through the year but I doubt any games besides
Resident Evil: Village, Scarlet Nexus have a chance to make the Top 50. They released such numbers for the last time in 2019 July. The cutoff point I anticipate to see mid year in the Top 50 will be around
40K a figure no older PS5 games are likely to hit by end of June this year.
Also even beyond looking at the following Quarter we notice that the only other major games that have been dated so far that should surpass
40K are
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade & Tails of Arise.
Japanese third parties have historically been the major driving force behind the PlayStation's success in Japan, but they are also fairly slow to transition to new gen, putting the PS5 in a very unfavorable position from different directions:
- third parties embracing the Switch
- Sony as a whole lacks 1st Party titles that really make the PS5 a compelling console for Japanese mass audience
- PS5 price is high and the console takes up a lot of space
- Western AAA games aren't exactly abundant at the moment
- Switch as a whole hitting it's software and hardware peak
- second hand market and backwards comparability
Finally the extraordinary demand outside of Japan I believe masks the underlining problems. As currently PS5 software even with digital is performing at the level Xbox360 achieved in the country during it's first six months on the market. One example is
Dead or Alive 4 achieving
100K sales on the system a figure that even with digital
Miles Morales hasn't likely hit yet. The only logical explanation is that a fare bit of the hardware sold in Japan has found it's way to other markets that are willing to pay twice or three times the retail price. With the Chinese launch coming on May 15th we might get an idea if there is truly untapped demand in Japan that would help software, because at the current time this is by far the only explanation of why PS5 software is performing at these levels.