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Japan 2022 top selling software and hardware(Famitsu)

Kokoloko85

Member
Minecraft is Microsoft's entry door to Japan

Don't they realize that? Do more games like that without all the woke stuff that Japan dislikes and the west venerates.

Minecrafts a one off. I doubt the minecraft team or anyone at MS could replicate the success unless making a sequel
 

ZoukGalaxy

Member
Elden Ring only sold 350,000 copies in the entire year?

What the fuck?
"JAPAN"
Attack On Titan Dancing GIF


I love them so much.
 

SlimeGooGoo

Party Gooper
Minecrafts a one off. I doubt the minecraft team or anyone at MS could replicate the success unless making a sequel
You're right about that.

My point is that one reason Japan loves Minecraft is because it kinda resembles Nintendo games in tone. It's more friendly and doesn't have (much) SJW stuff forced in.
It's sort like an "universal" type of game, easy for any culture to embrace it.

Microsoft doesn't invest in that type of games, which is a dumb move.
And when they try, it feels forced, it misses the tone (like those western cartoons that don't understand subtlety)
 

Woopah

Member
japan still 80% a handheld market, with sony picking up the few remaining console players and Series S getting the surprising amount of scraps.
At best we can say that Japan has gone hybrid. The cheaper, more handheld Lite sold 620,000 in Japan this year, fewer than the PS5 and far fewer than the other Switch models.
Elden Ring only sold 350,000 copies in the entire year?

What the fuck?
As others have said, that's just physical PS4 sales. In total its over 1 million in Japan
The state of boxed physical retail in Japan these days is so sad. I feel like without digital download sales there's almost no point in these anymore. Big AAA Nintendo games like Splatoon and Pokemon sells millions, and that's like the extent of any excitement.
I'd rather get physical sales than nothing (not that having digital wouldn't also be great! With Japan, we at least get hardware and software numbers, unlike from pretty much every other country.
And THAT I can agree with.

I just find utterly stupid when someone spouts the same BS about Sony's performance in Japan as being mainly because japanese became tired with what Sony offered. Rather than what actually happened: Ever since the 7th gen, Sony alligned their strategies and business towards the west(Not just US, mind you), where there were much more money to be made. And it worked. PS is as successful today as it is because of this, and probably it was the best decision they could make.

But its important to admit it came with a cost, which was losing the second biggest country for videogames.Japanese became tired of the west-centric games that "plagued" the system, not to mention the design choices for the hardware and much of the marketing behind it( Remember the whole button layout controversy a few years back, which unified the layout of PS's controllers through the world?). So Japan voted with their wallets. I don't understand this excuse that Sony diehards tell themselves that its because they don't like home consoles anymore and that's the reason for the declining sales, when the OG Switch is probably going to be the best selling console of all time in Japan.

About third party: Nintendo's dominance and complete control of the market is becoming hard to ignore, to the point that even devoted PS developers like Falcom is pulling away from PS(at least to the point of not being exclusive anymore) because it isn't financially plausible anymore, and those types of changes in alliance has a ripple effect to the rest of the world. But that's another discussion entirely that deserves its own thread, not this one.
I don't think the button swap or having Western-centric games caused any issues (Western developed games like COD: Black Ops 4 and GTA V were very popular on the PS4). Its more that the PS4 lacked enough games that appealed to a broad range of Japanese customers. They need more things like Elden Ring.
Means nothing when you are getting hammered on your home turf.
Especially with a system that has fewer games than you.
I don't think Sony sees Japan (or any country really) as it's "home turf". It thinks globally and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Also since 2020 there have been more releases for Switch than PS
 
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The fact that Japan has turned away fr
The Switch is more of a hybrid.Nothing more, nothing less.

You are trying to obfuscate a simple, observable, uncontroversial element: Japan has turned away from home consoles, and embraced mobile and portable systems, of which the Switch is one. It's not the docked aspect of the Switch that sells it; It is its portability and the power of Nintendo franchises in this realm (Otherwise, both the N64 and the GC would have succeeded).
 

feynoob

Banned
I don't think Sony sees Japan (or any country really) as it's "home turf". It thinks globally and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Globally, they are a big power house. Its wise decision, as global money (Euro, pound, and dollar) is more powerful.
 

Woopah

Member
The fact that Japan has turned away fr

You are trying to obfuscate a simple, observable, uncontroversial element: Japan has turned away from home consoles, and embraced mobile and portable systems, of which the Switch is one. It's not the docked aspect of the Switch that sells it; It is its portability and the power of Nintendo franchises in this realm (Otherwise, both the N64 and the GC would have succeeded).
The flexibility of the Switch does help in Japan, but it also helps the Switch everywhere else too.

When people talk about Japan moving away from consoles to portables, they miss that this was because of Japanese games moving from consoles to portables. It wasn't like after the PS2 Japan just decided they didn't want to play on TVs anymore.
Globally, they are a big power house. Its wise decision, as global money (Euro, pound, and dollar) is more powerful.
As Nintendo shows, it is possible to be successful in both the East and the West, but at this point I think Sony should just focus on their strengths rather than attmeoting any sort f hude pivot just to win back East Asia.
 

yurinka

Member
Rather than what actually happened: Ever since the 7th gen, Sony alligned their strategies and business towards the west(Not just US, mind you), where there were much more money to be made. And it worked. PS is as successful today as it is because of this, and probably it was the best decision they could make.
No, they didn't align their strategies and business towards the west. They aligned to a global market. And inside the global market, the west was more important so they did bet harder specially in the west. But this doesn't mean they decreased their support of Japan/Asia: the opposite, they release more PS games in Japan/Asia (like everywhere else) than before and made more partnerships with Japanese & Asian teams tan before.

And in fact, they did acquire Lasengle, which made mobile games for Sony focused in Japan generation over a Billion dollars per year. Remember that like in the rest of the world, the biggest gaming market in Japan is mobile, not consoles.

But its important to admit it came with a cost, which was losing the second biggest country for videogames.
Nothing leads to think Sony lost Japan, which btw isn't the 2nd biggest country for videogames revenue: he first one is China, the second one is USA, the third Japan.

But being the third generates only around 10-15% of the total global revenue.

Japanese became tired of the west-centric games that "plagued" the system,
Not true. Like the rest of the world in PS they shifted to buy games digitally faster than in Nintendo.

Nintendo's dominance and complete control of the market is becoming hard to ignore, to the point that even devoted PS developers like Falcom is pulling away from PS
What are you talking about? The poorly selling Falcom released basically all their console games of this millenium in PS, and that includes their next game, Ys X. Or their most recent releases, the PS exclusives The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki and its sequel.

And again, the retail sales are a small part of the market. Most of the sales on console (and more in PC or mobile) are digital, and now a fuck ton of the money that games make are from addons (microtransactions, dlcs, season passes etc).

And well, we don't have the total (digital+retail) game sales for Japan but we have the worldwide ones and the difference is quite big in favor of PS. It's basically impossible that Nintendo would dominate in Japan.
 
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Tams

Gold Member
This is a really bad look for third parties too - the top selling non-Nintendo game on the Switch sold less than 350k. Meanwhile for Nintendo an 8 year old Wii U port that still costs like $40+ sold more than twice of that.

edit: OTHER than Minecraft, I always glance over Minecraft lol

A bit silly to compare a timeless classic with broad appeal which has ongoing DLC to most other games.
 

Bragr

Banned
The Japanese retail game sales and consoles sold don't mean a shit when looking at their whole game business both in Japan and globally.
What do you mean by that? and don't your charts show Nintendo's operating profit is considerably higher?
 
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Woopah

Member
What are you talking about? The poorly selling Falcom released basically all their console games of this millenium in PS, and that includes their next game, Ys X. Or their most recent releases, the PS exclusives The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki and its sequel.
Its wrong to say "pulling away from PS". I think what Nautilus referring to is that Falcom were one of those Japanese developers who thought they could just stay PS exclusive forever and ignore the Switch. And that kept that blindfold on until they couldn't ignore the PS decline anymore and embraced multiplatofrm development

So its more that they are increasing Nintendo support rather than decreasing PlayStation support.
 

yurinka

Member
Its wrong to say "pulling away from PS". I think what Nautilus referring to is that Falcom were one of those Japanese developers who thought they could just stay PS exclusive forever and ignore the Switch. And that kept that blindfold on until they couldn't ignore the PS decline anymore and embraced multiplatofrm development

So its more that they are increasing Nintendo support rather than decreasing PlayStation support.
I would understand that if their most recent games would be Switch exclusives instead of PS exclusives.

But it's the opposite, as usual in the Japanese developers who, if not release both in PS and Switch and have to decide only one of them, in most cases they choose PS. And this is even counting the moneyhatted ones by Nintendo.

They see that 3rd party games sell way more in PS than in Switch globally, and on top of that Sony also moneyhats some of them, so they publish their games on PS and sometimes only there.
 
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Nautilus

Banned
The fact that Japan has turned away fr

You are trying to obfuscate a simple, observable, uncontroversial element: Japan has turned away from home consoles, and embraced mobile and portable systems, of which the Switch is one. It's not the docked aspect of the Switch that sells it; It is its portability and the power of Nintendo franchises in this realm (Otherwise, both the N64 and the GC would have succeeded).
I already answered above the notion that just because its a home console that Sony is failing, and not because of the real reasons.
 

Woopah

Member
I would understand that if their most recent games would be Switch exclusives instead of PS exclusives.
Their next game is Switch exclusive ( The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails) but I think that rematser is just to give their teams practice with Switch development. Going forward their major project will be PS/Switch like Ys X.

And well, we don't have the total (digital+retail) game sales for Japan but we have the worldwide ones and the difference is quite big in favor of PS. It's basically impossible that Nintendo would dominate in Japan.

Even if you gave PS a very generous digital split and Nintendo a very small digital split, Switch is going to sell way more software than PS4 and PS5 in Japan . Of course we don't know f2p games, but Switch has a lot of them too
 
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Nautilus

Banned
No, they didn't align their strategies and business towards the west. They aligned to a global market. And inside the global market, the west was more important so they did bet harder specially in the west. But this doesn't mean they decreased their support of Japan/Asia: the opposite, they release more PS games in Japan/Asia (like everywhere else) than before and made more partnerships with Japanese & Asian teams tan before.

And in fact, they did acquire Lasengle, which made mobile games for Sony focused in Japan generation over a Billion dollars per year. Remember that like in the rest of the world, the biggest gaming market in Japan is mobile, not consoles.


Nothing leads to think Sony lost Japan, which btw isn't the 2nd biggest country for videogames revenue: he first one is China, the second one is USA, the third Japan.

But being the third generates only around 10-15% of the total global revenue.


Not true. Like the rest of the world in PS they shifted to buy games digitally faster than in Nintendo.


What are you talking about? The poorly selling Falcom released basically all their console games of this millenium in PS, and that includes their next game, Ys X. Or their most recent releases, the PS exclusives The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki and its sequel.

And again, the retail sales are a small part of the market. Most of the sales on console (and more in PC or mobile) are digital, and now a fuck ton of the money that games make are from addons (microtransactions, dlcs, season passes etc).

And well, we don't have the total (digital+retail) game sales for Japan but we have the worldwide ones and the difference is quite big in favor of PS. It's basically impossible that Nintendo would dominate in Japan.
The global market is the west(A more ocidental taste). On this point, we are saying the same thing just in different ways. And just you know, launching more games in Asia doesn't mean that you are making more games for them in mind.

About the mobile comment: Sure. I don't know anything about that, but I believe you. But we are talking about Nintendo and PS's main market: Their consoles and their "proper" games.The things they are known for.

Nothing points to that? How about the diminishing hardware sales, that are worse every gen? How about the software sales, that are abysmal and even worse than the hardware ones, of which most weeks they didn't even appear in the top 10? And sure, China is tecnically number 2( US is still number 1), but that's mostly because of mobile, a market that both Sony and Nintendo is barely in. Which makes Japan the de facto number 2.

About Falcom: That's exactly what I meant. They ONLY released games on PS. Now? Because of PS's diminishing importance in Japan, all of their games moving foward are multiplatform. Hell, they just announced a exclusive game for the Switch( Its a port of an old game, but still). Something unheard of for Falcom. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.NIS, Level 5, and many more smaller japanese devs are treating the Switch as the primary system, because if you aren't on the Switch, it's almost like you didn't release your game.

For as much as the digital sales have grown, its not like they make a game sell 20 times more than it did physical. If PS games don't even appear on charts, its not like digital are making them selling an ok number. 10 times zero is still zero.

In case you didn't notice, Nintendo is already dominating Japan, ever since the Switch's release. Anyone keeping up with the weekly charts know that. The numbers don't lie. And so far(That will change in 2023 though) Nintendo is the market leader globally, as it still has the best selling console.

Nintendo is just killing the 9th gen, just like Sony won the 8th gen. I don't get whats hard about admitting that.
 

yurinka

Member
Their next game is Switch exclusive ( The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails) but I think that rematser is just to give their teams practice with Switch development. Going forward their major project will be PS/Switch like Ys X.
This millenium they basically released their games for Sony portables, PS home console and PC. Once Switch released for them it was like the succesor of Vita so basically all the games they released since 2016-2017 (plus a few previous ones) got released on Switch in addition to PS and PC, the exception being their two most recent games: The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki and its sequel, which were PS console exclusive.

Their next game, Ys X will continue that tradition of releasing their games for the high end portable of the moment, PS home consoles and PC they had since the PSP days. Something they didn't start to do with Switch and specially not after seeing its sales because they were there since the start.

The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails is a 2012 PSP game that got a remaster for PS4 and PC in 2021. That remaster got ported to Switch last year in Japan and will release in the west in 2023. It's a late Switch port of a remaster of a PSP game, not an exclusive. They don't have a single Switch exclusive released or announced.

Even if you gave PS a very generous digital split and Nintendo a very small digital split, Switch is going to sell way more software than PS4 and PS5 in Japan . Of course we don't know f2p games, but Switch has a lot of them too
Even if you gave PS a very generous digital split and Nintendo a very small digital split, Switch is going to sell way more software than PS4 and PS5 in Japan . Of course we don't know f2p games, but Switch has a lot of them too

Go and read in their fiscal reports the total game sales for each platform and remove from there their % of first party sales (which is a % way higher in Switch's case) to extract from there the total worldwide 3rd party games sales of PS and Switch.

You'll see that the difference in worldwide 3rd party game sales is even bigger, and will understand why PS gets way more 3rd party support than Switch and Xbox combined both from Japanese and western devs.

Edit: I'll do it for you:

3rd party games sold in the most recent quarter announced (Q2):
-PS: 55.8M (out of a total of 62.5M games sold, where 10.72% were 1st party)
-Switch: 14.7M (out of 54M, 72.7% were 1st party)
3.8:1 ratio in favor of PS

3rd party games sold in the previous quarter announced (Q1):
-PS: 40.7M (out of 47.1M, 13.59% were 1st party)
-Switch: 9.8M (out of 41.41M, 76.3% were 1st party)
4.2:1 ratio in favor of PS

3rd party games sold in the most recent full fiscal year announced:
-PS: 259.3M (out of 303.2M, 14.48% were 1st party)
-Switch: 49.83M (out of 235.07M, 78.8% were 1st party)
5.2:1 ratio in favor of PS
 
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You can go to their fiscal reports to double check alll this and also see that there's way more worldwide software revenue and games sold worldwide for PS than for Switch worldwide. The Japanese retail game sales and consoles sold don't mean a shit when looking at their whole game business both in Japan and globally. And even mean less if you also take into consideration the gaming business under Sony Music with Aniplex, Lassengle, etc.
In previous years when Switch hadn't reached it's peak and the PS4 was at it's peak you would have been correct but so far this fiscal year in Q1 PS4+PS5 software was 47.1 million versus 41.4 million for Switch and in Q2 PS4+PS5 software was 62.5 million versus 54 million for Switch. So the worldwide software gap is small and i also believe that Sony counts digital only software in their numbers and Nintendo does not, if Nintendo counted digital only software then Switch might be level with PS4+PS5.
 
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Woopah

Member
This millenium they basically released their games for Sony portables, PS home console and PC. Once Switch released for them it was like the succesor of Vita so basically all the games they released since 2016-2017 (plus a few previous ones) got released on Switch in addition to PS and PC, the exception being their two most recent games: The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki and its sequel, which were PS console exclusive.

Their next game, Ys X will continue that tradition of releasing their games for the high end portable of the moment, PS home consoles and PC they had since the PSP days. Something they didn't start to do with Switch and specially not after seeing its sales because they were there since the start.

Falcom were not there from the start. For most of Switch's life their position was that their audience was on PlayStation so they didn't need to develop for any other platform. If other companies wanted to do late ports of Falcom games to Switch, they had to do that themselves.

Then after Kuro no Kiseki underperformed (one of the reasons being the weak PS market in Japan), Falcom said that they would start developing for Switch in-house. This is something they had never done before. Whether it will pay off for them I don't know. I think they're too late.

The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails is a 2012 PSP game that got a remaster for PS4 and PC in 2021. That remaster got ported to Switch last year in Japan and will release in the west in 2023. It's a late Switch port of a remaster of a PSP game, not an exclusive. They don't have a single Switch exclusive released or announced.

My apologies, I got the game mixed up. The Boundless Trails port is the first Switch project they did in-house, its Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana which is the Switch exclusive remaster. But as I said, these remaster projects they are working on are probably just to give the team practice with the Switch. Once they have got the Switch side of things up and running, they'll make everything multiplatform.

Go and read in their fiscal reports the total game sales for each platform and remove from there their % of first party sales (which is a % way higher in Switch's case) to extract from there the total worldwide 3rd party games sales of PS and Switch.

You'll see that the difference in worldwide 3rd party game sales is even bigger, and will understand why PS gets way more 3rd party support than Switch and Xbox combined both from Japanese and western devs.

We're looking at total software sales though. Even if we were to look at third party software sales, in Japan these will be higher on Switch than PS. From the 2021 Media Create Top 1000:

Switch third party software - 10, 971,207
PS4 + PS5 third party software - 3,974,264

A difference in digital split is not going to close that gap.

Globally yes, PS's total and third party software sales will be higher than Switch's.
 
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yurinka

Member
For most of Switch's life their position was that their audience was on PlayStation so they didn't need to develop for any other platform. If other companies wanted to do late ports of Falcom games to Switch, they had to do that themselves.
Not exactly true, their president says that thinks that their audience is in PS but that if they don't develop for Switch is because they don't have the knowhow:
"Switch is an incredible platform we like, but the truth is that we don't have the knowhow to really develop for Switch. Plus we're, fairly convinced that our main user base is actually located on the PlayStation platform. That said, you know, thanks to working with Nippon Ichi Software in Japan and then NIS America over here, we were able to bring one of our games to Switch and obviously we want to grow the brands as much as we can and put it out as much as we can. So in the future, if we have the opportunity to have our games ported by other other companies to Nintendo Switch, it's something we would definitely be happy to pursue.

And as a gamer myself, as an aside, I personally love the Switch. In Japan when this question comes up, it always, we get this weird thing where it's like "Falcom doesn't want to work on Switch," or "Falcom doesn't like Switch," or something. And that's not... The plain and simple truth of it all is that we just don't have the knowhow and the ability to be able to work on Switch games right now.

Falcom were not there from the start.
True, Switch releases mostly were late ports. I meant that they ported to Switch the games they originally released aprox. since 2016-2017. I double checked it now and they ported to Switch almost all the games they released since 2010 (they release around a game and sometimes two per year) plus a few additional older ones.

Their last release in Vita was in 2016, then they continued releasing on PS4 and PC and their first Switch release was in 2018.

These are the games they released/plan to release on Switch:
Ys: The Oath in Felghana (PSP 2005, Switch 2023)
Ys Origin (PS4 & Vita 2017, Switch 2020)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero (PSP 2010, Vita 2012, PS4+Switch+PC 2022)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure (PSP 2011, PS4+Switch+PC 2023)
The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails (PSP 2012, PS4+PC 2021, Switch 2022)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel (PS3+Vita 2013, PC 2017, PS4 2018, Switch July 2021)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II (PS3+Vita 2014, PC 2018, Switch August 2021)
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (Vita 2016, PS4, 2017, PC 2018, Switch 2018)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III (PS4 2018, PC + Switch 2020)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV (PS4 2018, PC + Switch April 2021)
Ys IX: Monstrum Nox (PS4 2019, PC + Switch June 2021, PS5 2023)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie (PS4 2020, PC+Switch August 2021, PS5 2023)

These games games from the last decade still have not been ported to Switch, may be the next ones to be ported even if there are more PSP and Vita games to be ported:
Ys: Memories of Celceta (Vita 2012, PC 2015/2018, PS4 2019)
Tokyo Xanadu (Vita 2015, PS4 2016, PC 2017)
The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki (PS4 September 2021, PS5+PC 2022)
The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki II – Crimson Sin (PS4+PS5 2022)

Then after Kuro no Kiseki underperformed (one of the reasons being the weak PS market in Japan), Falcom said that they would start developing for Switch in-house. This is something they had never done before. Whether it will pay off for them I don't know. I think they're too late.
As you can see above all their Switch releases until now have been late ports, and most of them have been released on Switch before the Kuro no Kiseki release so its sales had nothing to do with that. After that game they released its sequel on PS only and only a couple late ports for Switch were released after, plus a third is announced to release at the same time on PS.

They announced a exclusive late Ys port/remaster for 2023 that is temporally? exclusive for Switch and a PS5 version of a game they already have in PS4. And their next new game, Ys X will be released in PS4, PS5 and Switch in 2023.

The personal opinion of the journalist you link in the first link is wrong, pretty likely the reason of starting releasing their new titles is that they are running out of old games to port to Switch, and that they finally got the knowhow that the president mentioned in the quotes I copypasted above from the earlier link you provided.

Maybe after all these Switch late ports made by Nippon Ichi, Cloud Leopard and NIS America they thought that had enough fans there and it was worth it to start releasing their next new games also in Switch and not only in PS.

Fun fact: not sure if Falcom still uses it, but some of the mentioned games of the old ports list were made using Sony's multiplatform PhyreEngine game engine used by many third party companies, engine which also allows to export games for Switch.

My apologies, I got the game mixed up. The Boundless Trails port is the first Switch project they did in-house, its Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana which is the Switch exclusive remaster. But as I said, these remaster projects they are working on are probably just to give the team practice with the Switch. Once they have got the Switch side of things up and running, they'll make everything multiplatform.
Yes, that game seems a remaster or remake of their several PSP games that never got a home console version. And yes, Ys X, their next new game, have been announced for PS4, PS5 and Switch.

We're looking at total software sales though. Even if we were to look at third party software sales, in Japan these will be higher on Switch than PS. From the 2021 Media Create Top 1000:

Switch third party software - 10, 971,207
PS4 + PS5 third party software - 3,974,264
These are not total sofware sales, these are a small fraction of the sofware sales. These are only the retail sales of the games that sold enough in physical to appear in that sales ranking. These aren't even the total physical sales for Japan.

A difference in digital split is not going to close that gap.

Globally yes, PS's total and third party software sales will be higher than Switch's.
It isn't only the digital split. I posted above the receipts of the difference in the amount of global 3rd party sales of PS vs Switch: 3.8:1 difference ratio in favor of PS for this Q2, 4.2:1 ratio for this Q1 and 5.2:1 ratio in favor of PS. And we're talking about the peak Switch sales year with releases like AC and later with Pokemon releases, so I doubt the difference before these 3 periods in 3rd party sales would be better in favor of Nintendo.

3rd party games sell way more on PS globally and with a higher digital split globally. Being Japan one of the top countries for consoles, 2nd as I remember, it's really very hard to believe that 3rd party companies could sell more in Switch than in PS.

And this is not counting addons (DLC/IAP/season or battle passes/F2P etc) or game subs, which are a key chunk of the game revenue today and where it's fair to assume they also made way more money on PS than in Switch.

In previous years when Switch hadn't reached it's peak and the PS4 was at it's peak you would have been correct but so far this fiscal year in Q1 PS4+PS5 software was 47.1 million versus 41.4 million for Switch and in Q2 PS4+PS5 software was 62.5 million versus 54 million for Switch. So the worldwide software gap is small and i also believe that Sony counts digital only software in their numbers and Nintendo does not, if Nintendo counted digital only software then Switch might be level with PS4+PS5.
Maybe I did add the later part of the post you quoted in an edit and you didn't see the last part where I isolated the 3rd party sales part of these numbers, I'll post it here again.

3rd party games sold in the most recent quarter announced (Q2):
-PS: 55.8M (out of a total of 62.5M games sold, where 10.72% were 1st party)
-Switch: 14.7M (out of 54M, 72.7% were 1st party)
3.8:1 ratio in favor of PS

3rd party games sold in the previous quarter announced (Q1):
-PS: 40.7M (out of 47.1M, 13.59% were 1st party)
-Switch: 9.8M (out of 41.41M, 76.3% were 1st party)
4.2:1 ratio in favor of PS

3rd party games sold in the most recent full fiscal year announced:
-PS: 259.3M (out of 303.2M, 14.48% were 1st party)
-Switch: 49.83M (out of 235.07M, 78.8% were 1st party)
5.2:1 ratio in favor of PS

From April 2021 to September 2022, the amount of 3rd party games sold worldwide on PS was 4 or 5 times the ones sold in Switch, counting both digital and physical game sales, not counting dlc/IAP/season passes/f2p/etc.

And we know Japan is the top 2 country for Sony's hardware and the 3rd for the whole (counting also mobile and PC) gaming market, even if it represents a relatively small percent of the total in both cases, so it may be representative or maybe not. We need more Japan specific data but the difference in global sales is pretty big, specially when you also consider has also should have a big lead in f2p/DLC/IAP/season or battle passes/etc and subscriptions and also has a bigger percent of digital sales.

It's very hard to believe total 3rd party game sales and revenue for Japan could be higher in Swith than in PS.
 
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Not exactly true, their president says that thinks that their audience is in PS but that if they don't develop for Switch is because they don't have the knowhow:
"Switch is an incredible platform we like, but the truth is that we don't have the knowhow to really develop for Switch. Plus we're, fairly convinced that our main user base is actually located on the PlayStation platform. That said, you know, thanks to working with Nippon Ichi Software in Japan and then NIS America over here, we were able to bring one of our games to Switch and obviously we want to grow the brands as much as we can and put it out as much as we can. So in the future, if we have the opportunity to have our games ported by other other companies to Nintendo Switch, it's something we would definitely be happy to pursue.

And as a gamer myself, as an aside, I personally love the Switch. In Japan when this question comes up, it always, we get this weird thing where it's like "Falcom doesn't want to work on Switch," or "Falcom doesn't like Switch," or something. And that's not... The plain and simple truth of it all is that we just don't have the knowhow and the ability to be able to work on Switch games right now.


True, Switch releases mostly were late ports. I meant that they ported to Switch the games they originally released aprox. since 2016-2017. I double checked it now and they ported to Switch almost all the games they released since 2010 (they release around a game and sometimes two per year) plus a few additional older ones.

Their last release in Vita was in 2016, then they continued releasing on PS4 and PC and their first Switch release was in 2018.

These are the games they released/plan to release on Switch:
Ys: The Oath in Felghana (PSP 2005, Switch 2023)
Ys Origin (PS4 & Vita 2017, Switch 2020)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero (PSP 2010, Vita 2012, PS4+Switch+PC 2022)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure (PSP 2011, PS4+Switch+PC 2023)
The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails (PSP 2012, PS4+PC 2021, Switch 2022)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel (PS3+Vita 2013, PC 2017, PS4 2018, Switch July 2021)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II (PS3+Vita 2014, PC 2018, Switch August 2021)
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (Vita 2016, PS4, 2017, PC 2018, Switch 2018)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III (PS4 2018, PC + Switch 2020)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV (PS4 2018, PC + Switch April 2021)
Ys IX: Monstrum Nox (PS4 2019, PC + Switch June 2021, PS5 2023)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie (PS4 2020, PC+Switch August 2021, PS5 2023)

These games games from the last decade still have not been ported to Switch, may be the next ones to be ported even if there are more PSP and Vita games to be ported:
Ys: Memories of Celceta (Vita 2012, PC 2015/2018, PS4 2019)
Tokyo Xanadu (Vita 2015, PS4 2016, PC 2017)
The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki (PS4 September 2021, PS5+PC 2022)
The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki II – Crimson Sin (PS4+PS5 2022)


As you can see above all their Switch releases until now have been late ports, and most of them have been released on Switch before the Kuro no Kiseki release so its sales had nothing to do with that. After that game they released its sequel on PS only and only a couple late ports for Switch were released after, plus a third is announced to release at the same time on PS.

They announced a exclusive late Ys port/remaster for 2023 that is temporally? exclusive for Switch and a PS5 version of a game they already have in PS4. And their next new game, Ys X will be released in PS4, PS5 and Switch in 2023.

The personal opinion of the journalist you link in the first link is wrong, pretty likely the reason of starting releasing their new titles is that they are running out of old games to port to Switch, and that they finally got the knowhow that the president mentioned in the quotes I copypasted above from the earlier link you provided.

Maybe after all these Switch late ports made by Nippon Ichi, Cloud Leopard and NIS America they thought that had enough fans there and it was worth it to start releasing their next new games also in Switch and not only in PS.

Fun fact: not sure if Falcom still uses it, but some of the mentioned games of the old ports list were made using Sony's multiplatform PhyreEngine game engine used by many third party companies, engine which also allows to export games for Switch.


Yes, that game seems a remaster or remake of their several PSP games that never got a home console version. And yes, Ys X, their next new game, have been announced for PS4, PS5 and Switch.


These are not total sofware sales, these are a small fraction of the sofware sales. These are only the retail sales of the games that sold enough in physical to appear in that sales ranking. These aren't even the total physical sales for Japan.


It isn't only the digital split. I posted above the receipts of the difference in the amount of global 3rd party sales of PS vs Switch: 3.8:1 difference ratio in favor of PS for this Q2, 4.2:1 ratio for this Q1 and 5.2:1 ratio in favor of PS. And we're talking about the peak Switch sales year with releases like AC and later with Pokemon releases, so I doubt the difference before these 3 periods in 3rd party sales would be better in favor of Nintendo.

3rd party games sell way more on PS globally and with a higher digital split globally. Being Japan one of the top countries for consoles, 2nd as I remember, it's really very hard to believe that 3rd party companies could sell more in Switch than in PS.

And this is not counting addons (DLC/IAP/season or battle passes/F2P etc) or game subs, which are a key chunk of the game revenue today and where it's fair to assume they also made way more money on PS than in Switch.


Maybe I did add the later part of the post you quoted in an edit and you didn't see the last part where I isolated the 3rd party sales part of these numbers, I'll post it here again.

3rd party games sold in the most recent quarter announced (Q2):
-PS: 55.8M (out of a total of 62.5M games sold, where 10.72% were 1st party)
-Switch: 14.7M (out of 54M, 72.7% were 1st party)
3.8:1 ratio in favor of PS

3rd party games sold in the previous quarter announced (Q1):
-PS: 40.7M (out of 47.1M, 13.59% were 1st party)
-Switch: 9.8M (out of 41.41M, 76.3% were 1st party)
4.2:1 ratio in favor of PS

3rd party games sold in the most recent full fiscal year announced:
-PS: 259.3M (out of 303.2M, 14.48% were 1st party)
-Switch: 49.83M (out of 235.07M, 78.8% were 1st party)
5.2:1 ratio in favor of PS

From April 2021 to September 2022, the amount of 3rd party games sold worldwide on PS was 4 or 5 times the ones sold in Switch, counting both digital and physical game sales, not counting dlc/IAP/season passes/f2p/etc.

And we know Japan is the top 2 country for Sony's hardware and the 3rd for the whole (counting also mobile and PC) gaming market, even if it represents a relatively small percent of the total in both cases, so it may be representative or maybe not. We need more Japan specific data but the difference in global sales is pretty big, specially when you also consider has also should have a big lead in f2p/DLC/IAP/season or battle passes/etc and subscriptions and also has a bigger percent of digital sales.

It's very hard to believe total 3rd party game sales and revenue for Japan could be higher in Swith than in PS.
1st party games on Switch are less than 50% of total unit sales, those 70% to 80% figures are revenue ratios for first party software, this makes sense since 1st party games are mostly full priced $60 games that hold their price and many third party games are not full price and even when they are they get heavily discounted a few months after release. For example 78.8% of 235.06 million last fiscal year was revenue not units, if you add up the total of the 26 first party games that sold 1 million or more units for the fiscal year those 1st party games total 103 million units. Of course there are about 25 other 1st party games that sold less than a million each but most of them are clinically dead like 1 2 Switch but others like DKTF are selling half a million per FY, lets be generous and say they add another 10 million then for the last FY about 113 million were 1st party and 122 million were 3rd party.
 
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yurinka

Member
1st party games on Switch are less than 50% of total unit sales, those 70% to 80% figures are revenue ratios for first party software, this makes sense since 1st party games are mostly full priced $60 games that hold their price and many third party games are not full price and even when they are they get heavily discounted a few months after release. For example 78.8% of 235.06 million last fiscal year was revenue not units, if you add up the total of the 26 first party games that sold 1 million or more units for the fiscal year those 1st party games total 103 million units. Of course there are about 25 other 1st party games that sold less than a million but most of them are clinically dead like 1 2 Switch but others like DKTF are selling half a million per FY, lets be generous and say they add another 10 million then for the last FY about 113 million were 1st party and 122 million were 3rd party.
In that case it's even worse for the 3rd parties in Switch, because even including the revenue from addons (DLC, IAP etc) and F2P games like Fortnite the total 3rd party game revenue only represents around 20% of the total and super discounted 3rd party games wouldn't help to bump their % of game sales.
 
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Flutta

Banned
Japan = Nintendo.

Sony needs a new handheld and a bunch of games to have a chance. But Jimbo only cares about the west and woke garbage so they will continue to lose.
 
In that case it's even worse for the 3rd parties in Switch, because even including the revenue from addons (DLC, IAP etc) and F2P games like Fortnite the total 3rd party game revenue only represents around 20% of the total and super discounted 3rd party games wouldn't help to bump their % of game sales.
I'm sure Nintendo aren't too bothered that 1st party is so dominant, they keep 100% revenue for 1 out of 2 games sold unlike Sony that has to pass on 70% to the 3rd party publisher for the vast majority of games sold on their consoles. That's why Playstations revenue is higher but profits are lower.
 

yurinka

Member
I'm sure Nintendo aren't too bothered that 1st party is so dominant, they keep 100% revenue for 1 out of 2 games sold unlike Sony that has to pass on 70% to the 3rd party publisher for the vast majority of games sold on their consoles. That's why Playstations revenue is higher but profits are lower.
Sony G&NS (SIE) and Nintendo generate a huge amount of revenue and profit, they are not worried about these things.

PS revenue is way higher because they sell more games for their platforms, with a higher digital ratio that makes them more profitable, have more super successful GaaS on their platform and also have way more subs on their subscription. Profits are lower because they work on more big games at the same time, each one is way bigger to make, their hardware is more high end and the first years they sell it a loss and because they had released a console recently so were in the intergenerational period, which traditionally always negatively affect them in profitability and also had the R&D costs of the upcoming PSVR2.

SIE is growing in all their areas, not only the ones related to their console, and are getting rid of the chips shortage, so very likely will continue their long multi year pattern of increasing their revenue and profit, which combined with Switch sunseting and the slow rise of PC handhelds getting a portion of the handheld market pretty likely in a few years Sony will have more yearly profit than Nintendo.
 

Woopah

Member
Not exactly true, their president says that thinks that their audience is in PS but that if they don't develop for Switch is because they don't have the knowhow:
"Switch is an incredible platform we like, but the truth is that we don't have the knowhow to really develop for Switch. Plus we're, fairly convinced that our main user base is actually located on the PlayStation platform. That said, you know, thanks to working with Nippon Ichi Software in Japan and then NIS America over here, we were able to bring one of our games to Switch and obviously we want to grow the brands as much as we can and put it out as much as we can. So in the future, if we have the opportunity to have our games ported by other other companies to Nintendo Switch, it's something we would definitely be happy to pursue.

And as a gamer myself, as an aside, I personally love the Switch. In Japan when this question comes up, it always, we get this weird thing where it's like "Falcom doesn't want to work on Switch," or "Falcom doesn't like Switch," or something. And that's not... The plain and simple truth of it all is that we just don't have the knowhow and the ability to be able to work on Switch games right now.


The personal opinion of the journalist you link in the first link is wrong, pretty likely the reason of starting releasing their new titles is that they are running out of old games to port to Switch, and that they finally got the knowhow that the president mentioned in the quotes I copypasted above from the earlier link you provided.

Maybe after all these Switch late ports made by Nippon Ichi, Cloud Leopard and NIS America they thought that had enough fans there and it was worth it to start releasing their next new games also in Switch and not only in PS.

Fun fact: not sure if Falcom still uses it, but some of the mentioned games of the old ports list were made using Sony's multiplatform PhyreEngine game engine used by many third party companies, engine which also allows to export games for Switch.


Yes, that game seems a remaster or remake of their several PSP games that never got a home console version. And yes, Ys X, their next new game, have been announced for PS4, PS5 and Switch.
Thats what I'm saying. Falcom didn't make enough effort to learn Switch know-how before the end of 2021. It was only after Kuro no Kiseki underperformed that they announced they were going to start developing Switch games themselves.

The tweet I linked to is not the personal opinion from a journlasit, it is a quote from Falcom's president at a meeting with shareholders (sorry, I shoud have made that more clear). The longer quote is:

Kondo: "We recognize that the number of sales of "Kuro no Kiseki" was "lower than expected" and that it is an issue. I think the current cause is quality, of course, but I'm concerned that there may have been a weak PS market, a decrease in print media in the process of announcing products, and a lack of public relations activities. We can see that the market for PS4 alone will shrink in the future, so we have to do our best to increase the number of platforms. In Japan, rather than licensing, we believe that doing it ourselves will be more profitable."

Their decision to start Switch development was a direct result of the market dynamics in Japan.

Yes, that game seems a remaster or remake of their several PSP games that never got a home console version. And yes, Ys X, their next new game, have been announced for PS4, PS5 and Switch.
Correct, as I said the Switch exlusive remasters are probably just to give Falcom's developers some Switch practice.

Fun fact: not sure if Falcom still uses it, but some of the mentioned games of the old ports list were made using Sony's multiplatform PhyreEngine game engine used by many third party companies, engine which also allows to export games for Switch.

Yes indeed! Though I understand Falcom is going to start using their own engine going forward.

3rd party games sell way more on PS globally and with a higher digital split globally. Being Japan one of the top countries for consoles, 2nd as I remember, it's really very hard to believe that 3rd party companies could sell more in Switch than in PS.

And this is not counting addons (DLC/IAP/season or battle passes/F2P etc) or game subs, which are a key chunk of the game revenue today and where it's fair to assume they also made way more money on PS than in Switch.

And we know Japan is the top 2 country for Sony's hardware and the 3rd for the whole (counting also mobile and PC) gaming market, even if it represents a relatively small percent of the total in both cases, so it may be representative or maybe not. We need more Japan specific data but the difference in global sales is pretty big, specially when you also consider has also should have a big lead in f2p/DLC/IAP/season or battle passes/etc and subscriptions and also has a bigger percent of digital sales.

It's very hard to believe total 3rd party game sales and revenue for Japan could be higher in Swith than in PS.
Why? The makret dynamics between PS and Switch are very very different in East Asia than worldwide.

We know that in 2021 Switch third party physcial software sold a lot more that PS physical software, as per the Media Create Top 1,000 (The game at 1,000 sold 777 copies that year, so its fair to say the numbers are a fairly accurate sumamry of the physical market). In terms of digital, CESA is given data directly from Japanese publishers and it has the digital splits for each platform as:

PS5 - 21.7% digital ratio
PS4 - 35.4% digital ratio
Switch - 24.0% digital ratio

So the numbers I posted from the Media Create Top 1,000 are not a "small fraction" of the market. They are a huge chunk of the market.

Now the digital split for third party games on Switch in Japan will probably be lower than the split for first party, since only first party games are included in the voucher programme . However they won't be that much lower. In terms of DLC /microtransactions, we unfortunately don't have any actual Japan-specific data, only what the physical packs of things like Fortntie and Apex sold.

So its the oppsite. Its very hard to believe that PS is selling more third party software in Japan that Switch.

Worldwide yes I agree that PS is ahead for third party software sales. Its difficult to do a direct comparison due to Sony and Nintnedo's different accouting methods, but I think we can still be certian that Sony leads substantially in that area.
 
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yurinka

Member
Thats what I'm saying. Falcom didn't make enough effort to learn Switch know-how before the end of 2021.

It was only after Kuro no Kiseki underperformed that they announced they were going to start developing Switch games themselves.

The tweet I linked to is not the personal opinion from a journlasit, it is a quote from Falcom's president at a meeting with shareholders (sorry, I shoud have made that more clear). The longer quote is:

Kondo: "We recognize that the number of sales of "Kuro no Kiseki" was "lower than expected" and that it is an issue. I think the current cause is quality, of course, but I'm concerned that there may have been a weak PS market, a decrease in print media in the process of announcing products, and a lack of public relations activities. We can see that the market for PS4 alone will shrink in the future, so we have to do our best to increase the number of platforms. In Japan, rather than licensing, we believe that doing it ourselves will be more profitable."
In a message from the president earlier to that game (2019) that we both commented says he says likes Switch (normal, they were a big supporters of the previous high end handhelds) but he says they don't port their games by themselves there because don't have the knowhow so they were using other companies to port their games there while they focused on PS because it's where they market was and what they knew to do. And he adds:

"In Japan when this question comes up, it always, we get this weird thing where it's like "Falcom doesn't want to work on Switch," or "Falcom doesn't like Switch," or something. And that's not... The plain and simple truth of it all is that we just don't have the knowhow and the ability to be able to work on Switch games right now."

So they started to work on Switch they they got that knowhow. Regarding the low sales of Kiseki he says the main reason is the quality of the game. He adds, but as a secondary reason / a concern that there was a decrease in retail sales (normal to have lack of retail consoles and games, in 2021 there were lockdowns), so a weak PS market, and poor job in PR.

And then he says "We can see that the market for PS4 (notice it's PS4, not PS) alone will shrink in the future", meaning that the PS4 is sunseting so they have to move to PS5, and now that they got the Switch knowhow they lacked, to Switch too. Because obviously if they port and publish the games by themselves they don't have to pay others/share part of their revenue with other companies, so they get more profitable.

Their decision to start Switch development was a direct result of the market dynamics in Japan.
Falcom never said that.

Correct, as I said the Switch exlusive remasters are probably just to give Falcom's developers some Switch practice.
Yes, pretty likely

Yes indeed! Though I understand Falcom is going to start using their own engine going forward.
I don't know, I didn't find any info about this. I know PhyreEngine supports Switch but I don't know if it supports PS5.

Why? The makret dynamics between PS and Switch are very very different in East Asia than worldwide.
Because 3rd party games sold 4x-5x time on PS (or more) the amount they sell on PS according to the finantial reports of Nintendo and Sony and we don't have the total East Asia/Japan number sales.

And in any case, you give too much attention to Japan, which is a small portion of the global market. These years Japanese companies started to look at selling their games to a worldwide market instead of focusing only in Japan because of that.

We know that in 2021 Switch third party physcial software sold a lot more that PS physical software, as per the Media Create Top 1,000 (The game at 1,000 sold 777 copies that year, so its fair to say the numbers are a fairly accurate sumamry of the physical market). In terms of digital, CESA is given data directly from Japanese publishers and it has the digital splits for each platform as:

PS5 - 21.7% digital ratio
PS4 - 35.4% digital ratio
Switch - 24.0% digital ratio

So the numbers I posted from the Media Create Top 1,000 are not a "small fraction" of the market. They are a huge chunk of the market.
There are thousands of games released each year so yes, top 1000 is a fraction of them. Plus yes, they are a small fraction because aren't even all the retail sales, and retail sales represent a minority of the total game sales, which at the same time game sales are a minority of the revenue that companies make from games today.

In digital you can see there a PS lead in digital with more than the double than Switch, yes, but even if we'd had the complete physical+retail game sales data we wouldn't have the complete picture. We aren't in the times were the companies made their money only by selling games, and even less on retail. The majority of their money comes from DLC/IAP/season passes/etc.

In fact, consoles aren't even the leading gaming market anymore in Japan or worldwide.

Now the digital split for third party games on Switch in Japan will probably be lower than the split for first party, since only first party games are included in the voucher programme . However they won't be that much lower. In terms of DLC /microtransactions, we unfortunately don't have any actual Japan-specific data, only what the physical packs of things like Fortntie and Apex sold.
I remember that the Apex folks mentioned they were surprised for their performance in Japan, but as I remember they didn't share numbers.

I think it's a shame to don't have the complete picture, specially the one that represents today the biggest part of the game revenue: the addons one (DLC/IAP/etc).

So its the oppsite. Its very hard to believe that PS is selling more third party software in Japan that Switch.

Worldwide yes I agree that PS is ahead for third party software sales. Its difficult to do a direct comparison due to Sony and Nintnedo's different accouting methods, but I think we can still be certian that Sony leads substantially in that area.
The methods are the same: units sold and software revenue made,1st party are the ones published by the platform holder and 3rd party are the ones published by someone else.

There's a big difference in worldwide numbers and for both Japan in consoles is their 2nd country, even if for the whole console market there a big distance of the first one, so it's fair to assume that for them too since they together represent a big majority of the console market.

In the case of Nintendo they make a split between Japan (domestic for them) and the rest of the work, something that Sony doesn't do. If Sony would share their percent for Japan we'd be able to get a closer, but still very incomplete, idea.

We know most of the worldwide software revenue made in Switch comes from 1st party, while in PS we know it comes from 3rd party. And at the same time, we also know that the volume of revenue is higher on PS and that comes in a bigger % from digital, specially because they have some GaaS mamooths there selling a shit ton of DLC/IAP/season and battle passes.

So we know there's a big difference in worldwide 3rd party sales and revenue between PS and Switch. And if Japan if their top 2 country, even if doesn't represent a huge %, should be somewhat relatively similar.
 
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Woopah

Member
Falcom never said that
They did. The key part of the the quote is "We can see that the market for PS4 alone will shrink in the future, so we have to do our best to increase the number of platforms. In Japan, rather than licensing, we believe that doing it ourselves will be more profitable."

They are saying they need to increase the number of platforms they develop for, because the PS4 will shrink. It wasn't a refernce to PS5, as they had already released Kuro no Kiseki on PS5. It was a reference to Switch, becuase they had just announced their intention to develop for Switch in their financial results.

They didn't have any know-how on Switch before, even though it was over 4 years old. It was only after the sales numbers of Kuro no Kiseki came in that they decided to get that know how Its a direct repsonse to those sales figures

Because 3rd party games sold 4x-5x time on PS (or more) the amount they sell on PS according to the finantial reports of Nintendo and Sony and we don't have the total East Asia/Japan number sales.

And in any case, you give too much attention to Japan, which is a small portion of the global market. These years Japanese companies started to look at selling their games to a worldwide market instead of focusing only in Japan because of that.

Couple of points on this

1. We can't take worldwide ratios and apply them to 1 country, when the dynamics are very different. Switch has 3x the userbase of PS4 in Japan, it has basically the same userbase as Japan worldwide.
2. Your maths on 4x/5x third party sales on PS is not something we can tell. Sony's figures include digital-only games while Nintnedo's does not. Also the ratios you are using from Nintendo's financial reports are not about total unit sales, they are about Nintnedo's own revenue. Nintnedo is almost always going to make more revenue from first party sales, because they get 100% of the revenue from them. For third party sales, Nintnedo's revenue is only their own cut (which I think is 30% of the sale price.)

I'm giving attention to Japan becuase that's the focus of this thread. We agree that Sony sells more third party games worldwide.

I'm just saying that Switch sells more third party games in Japan, as indicated by the data we get from Media Create and CESA. We have no data on DLC/IAP for Japan so we don't know which platform has more.

In digital you can see there a PS lead in digital with more than the double than Switch, yes, but even if we'd had the complete physical+retail game sales data we wouldn't have the complete picture. We aren't in the times were the companies made their money only by selling games, and even less on retail. The majority of their money comes from DLC/IAP/season passes/etc.

Those aren't share of the digital marekt, its the digital/physical ratio per platform in Japan. So 35.4% of PS4's game sales were digital, while for Switch it was 24% (only inclduing games with retail retail of course)

My main disagreement was you saying that its very hard to believe that Switch sells more third party games than PS in Japan. Its not "very hard" to believe that from the indications we get from the data from Media Create and CESA

Of course this is only for games sold. For DLC/IAP in Japan we don't know whether PS or Switch generates more or to what extent.
 
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jm89

Member
SCE moved to the US years ago along with a US CEO
I would still consider it japanese company. Like if apple had a subsidary company and moved the headquarters to UK, most people would probably still be consider it american.
 
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yurinka

Member
They did. The key part of the the quote is "We can see that the market for PS4 alone will shrink in the future, so we have to do our best to increase the number of platforms. In Japan, rather than licensing, we believe that doing it ourselves will be more profitable."
With the first part they meant that obviously PS4 is so fucking old and is sunseting since a few years ago so obviously they have to move on to new platforms (being PS5 and Switch, the ones they are developing for since then). Something that is obvious and happens with all platforms.

The second part means that obviously if they port/develop themselves the different versions obviously is more profitable for them than to outsource/license ports, publishing etc.

In the past they didn't know how to develop for Switch and now they know. And PS4 is getting old so they move to PS5.

They are saying they need to increase the number of platforms they develop for, because the PS4 will shrink. It wasn't a refernce to PS5, as they had already released Kuro no Kiseki on PS5. It was a reference to Switch, becuase they had just announced their intention to develop for Switch in their financial reuslts
Yes, it's a reference to PS5 because two of the three projects they announced are for PS5. And also a reference to Switch and mobile.

As we pointed out, they already said back in 2019 that wanted to develop for Switch but they still didn't know how, so they licensed the ports to other companies. Some time later they learnt/hired people to develop for Switch so are developed for Switch in addition to PS.

They are going back to what they did for many years, to release their games both in PS home consoles and the high end portable console of the time. In the past PSP or Vita, now Switch.

They won't stop developing for PS replacing it with Switch. Like all the other companies they are leaving PS4 behind because it's too old and they are moving to PS5. And in their case they also made their games for portables but in the current one until now they didn't have the knowhow until now. So now they'll start to develop for it by themselves.

They didn't have any know-how on Switch before, even though it was over 4 years old. It was only after the sales numbers of Kuro no Kiseki came in that they decided to get that know off. Its a direct repsonse to those saleS figures
They are a small company and had partners who handled the ports, so didn't have the need to do it by themselves until they managed/got enough money or resources to do it.

It isn't a reaction to the sale figures because 3 years before that they already said that wanted to develop for Switch but still weren't able to do it. And they did it when they could do it.

1. We can't take worldwdie raitos and apply them to 1 country, when the dynamcis are very different. Switch has 3x the userbase of PS4 in Japan, it has basically the same userbase as Japan worldwide. If we were to look at total sales for exmaple,
PS is not only PS4, it also has PS5. And the amount of 3rd party worldwide performance is very different in PS than in Switch, way higher. More than these 3x.

2. Your maths on 4x/5x third party sales on PS is not something we can tell. Sony's figures include digital-only games while Nintnedo's does not.
Yes, the Nintendo data does include both digital and physical. They mention in a different place of the link I provided their digital split out of their total software sales.

Also the ratios you are using from Nintendo's financial reports ar enot abput total unit sales, they are about Nintnedo's won revenue.
No, it's the software units sold and the portion of them that comes from 3rd party. The posts includes the links that mention it.

I'm just saying that Switch sells more third party games in Japan, as indicated by the data we get from Media Create and CESA. We have no data on DLC/IAP for Japan so we don't know which platform has more.
No, the provided CESA data said that PS sold over twice games than Switch.

My main disagreement was you saying that its very hard to believe that Switch sells more third party games than PS in Japan. Its not "very hard" to believe that from the indications we get from the data from Media Create and CESA
  • We know that are way more total (physical+digital) 3rd party games than Switch worldwide
  • We know that PS has a higher percent of digital sales than Switch
  • We know that retail sales are a very small portion of the total console sales market
  • We know that a majority of the game revenue in gaming and PS comes from F2P/DLC/IAP/season passes etc
  • We know Japan is the 2nd country for both PS and Switch
  • We know that PS4 has a record crazy retention for their users and like 90M of them were still active like a year after PS5 launch, on top of the ones who moved to PS5
Yes, it's hard to think Switch dominates 3rd party market in Japan and retail sales ranking aren't representative to get the whole picture because there are retail games not listed there, retail sales are a minority of the game sales and the total game sales are a minority of software revenue because it isn't considering addons and subscriptions.
 

supernova8

Banned
NeoGAF nerds: “Nintendo should make a powerful, cutting edge new system with full backwards compatibility”

Nintendo, outselling all their competition combined with ancient hardware that hasn’t had a price cut since its launch 6 years ago, whose first party games cost a fraction of the budget of most modern AAA games, many of which are ports and remasters of previous gen games:

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Plus if you look at all the garbage people play in Japan (the waifu games, the low effort gatcha mobile games, the earth defense force type shit that still has PS2-level visuals), it's not hard to see that the "let's release a super powerful console" simply won't work.

Also it's pretty amazing that BOTW still hasn't had a price cut. As far as I'm aware they only just cut the price for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and that's likely on for a certain period (and because they want to increase the TAM for that expansion they released).

That's the beauty with some Nintendo first party titles, they never lose their value since they never go down in price so you can play them and then just sell them second hand and get most of your money back. Essentially means you get to rent the game for almost free.
 
  • We know that are way more total (physical+digital) 3rd party games than Switch worldwide
  • We know that PS has a higher percent of digital sales than Switch
  • We know that retail sales are a very small portion of the total console sales market
  • We know that a majority of the game revenue in gaming and PS comes from F2P/DLC/IAP/season passes etc
  • We know Japan is the 2nd country for both PS and Switch
  • We know that PS4 has a record crazy retention for their users and like 90M of them were still active like a year after PS5 launch, on top of the ones who moved to PS5
Yes, it's hard to think Switch dominates 3rd party market in Japan and retail sales ranking aren't representative to get the whole picture because there are retail games not listed there, retail sales are a minority of the game sales and the total game sales are a minority of software revenue because it isn't considering addons and subscriptions.

1. This is just fantasyland stuff. Retail is far stronger in Japan than almost all other countries in the world. The secondhand market in Japan is still a big thing. This is about Japan. The retail space Sony has lost to Nintendo over the last 6 years is significant in Japan. CoD isnt a thing in Japan and so a lot of those huge 3rd party sales dont exist in Japan. Most 3rd party sales are from CoD and yearly sports franchises.
2. Sony inflates its digital sales numbers by including Microtransations as part of software sales. So, we know that in actual fact digital game sales are significantly lower than the percentage Sony says it sells digitally.
3. This isnt true in Japan.
4. Yeah.. mostly it came from the fact Sony has special deals in place to ensure it gets its cut.
5. There is no such thing as a second or first country in a global market.
6. We know Sony membership is falling.
 

Woopah

Member
With the first part they meant that obviously PS4 is so fucking old and is sunseting since a few years ago so obviously they have to move on to new platforms (being PS5 and Switch, the ones they are developing for since then). Something that is obvious and happens with all platforms.

The second part means that obviously if they port/develop themselves the different versions obviously is more profitable for them than to outsource/license ports, publishing etc.

In the past they didn't know how to develop for Switch and now they know. And PS4 is getting old so they move to PS5.


Yes, it's a reference to PS5 because two of the three projects they announced are for PS5. And also a reference to Switch and mobile.

As we pointed out, they already said back in 2019 that wanted to develop for Switch but they still didn't know how, so they licensed the ports to other companies. Some time later they learnt/hired people to develop for Switch so are developed for Switch in addition to PS.

They are going back to what they did for many years, to release their games both in PS home consoles and the high end portable console of the time. In the past PSP or Vita, now Switch.

They won't stop developing for PS replacing it with Switch. Like all the other companies they are leaving PS4 behind because it's too old and they are moving to PS5. And in their case they also made their games for portables but in the current one until now they didn't have the knowhow until now. So now they'll start to develop for it by themselves.


They are a small company and had partners who handled the ports, so didn't have the need to do it by themselves until they managed/got enough money or resources to do it.

It isn't a reaction to the sale figures because 3 years before that they already said that wanted to develop for Switch but still weren't able to do it. And they did it when they could do it.

Falcom were already on PS5 at this point, so that would not "increase the number of platforms". This quote from Konda was made at the meeting after they announced their intention to get Switch development know-how, and is a clear refernce to Switch, not PS5.

Many other small companies were able to get Switch development know-how way ealier, but Falcom chose not to. After the sales of Kuro no Kiseki came in and showed that PS4 sales were shrinking and the PS5 sales weren't offsetting that delcine, they announced thier intention to develop for Switch. The quote from Kondo says that the PS4 market is declning, so they need to start including platforms they didn't include before. He directly links the decision to expand to Switch to the PS4 software market.

They won't stop developing for PS replacing it with Switch. Like all the other companies they are leaving PS4 behind because it's too old and they are moving to PS5.

I never said that, just that they are moving from being a PS only developer to a PS/Switch developer. They won't leave the PS4 behind anytime soon though.

Yes, the Nintendo data does include both digital and physical. They mention in a different place of the link I provided their digital split out of their total software sales.

It includes digital for games that have a retail release. It excludes games that are downloadable only.

No, the provided CESA data said that PS sold over twice games than Switch.
Its a digital/retail ratio. Where are you getitng "over the twice games" from?

No, it's the software units sold and the portion of them that comes from 3rd party. The posts includes the links that mention it.

This is wrong. When Nintnedo talks about sales its their own revenue, not units. What they are saying is that, of the ¥146,939M they generated from software revenue in the first 2 quarters, 72.7% of it was from their own games . Which makes sense as they get the majority of revenue from a 1st party game sold, and only a cut of the revenue from a 3rd party game sold.
  • We know that are way more total (physical+digital) 3rd party games than Switch worldwide
  • We know that PS has a higher percent of digital sales than Switch
  • We know that retail sales are a very small portion of the total console sales market
  • We know that a majority of the game revenue in gaming and PS comes from F2P/DLC/IAP/season passes etc
  • We know Japan is the 2nd country for both PS and Switch
  • We know that PS4 has a record crazy retention for their users and like 90M of them were still active like a year after PS5 launch, on top of the ones who moved to PS5
Yes, it's hard to think Switch dominates 3rd party market in Japan and retail sales ranking aren't representative to get the whole picture because there are retail games not listed there, retail sales are a minority of the game sales and the total game sales are a minority of software revenue because it isn't considering addons and subscriptions.

Again you're applying worlwide trends to Japan, which doesn't work. For example, worldwide PS total software units are likely to be higher than Switch. No one would argue that PS total software units are higher than Switch in Japan.

There's no data for Japan which makes it difficult to believe Switch generates more third party revenue in that particular country. We have data showing Switch is very likely to lead in terms of third party games sold in Japan, and we have 0 data on which platorm generates more F2P/DLC/IAP revenue in Japan.
 

yurinka

Member
1. This is just fantasyland stuff.
So according to you Nintendo or Sony are lying on their fiscal reports
2. Sony inflates its digital sales numbers by including Microtransations as part of software sales.
No, Sony reports separatedly revenue from physical game sales, digital game sales, add-ons (microtransactions, dlc, passes, etc) or subscriptions.

And full game units sold reporting separatedly 1st party and total, so you can subtract them to get the 3rd party game sales.

image.png


So, we know that in actual fact digital game sales are significantly lower than the percentage Sony says it sells digitally.
Not true, above you have the report for their most recent quarter.

3. This isnt true in Japan.
We know the worldwide number, not the Japanese number. Please share a link with the source if you have any.

4. Yeah.. mostly it came from the fact Sony has special deals in place to ensure it gets its cut.

5. There is no such thing as a second or first country in a global market.
Yes, there are country rankings reports of the associations of publishers and developers of the different countries, market analysis firms or the reports of the publishers themselves.

Sony recently last year one regarding number of active consoles after 72th week to highlight that China moved from top 11 in PS4 to top 6.

image.png

Edit: I forgot that Japan went from top 2 to top 3 in that ranking.

6. We know Sony membership is falling.
They aren't, there was only a very minor drop in PSN MAU in recent quarters that will be recovered when posting the numbers of the new quarters, when having got rid of the chip supplies and have been able to go back to normal sales, so they'll recover their grow.

Regarging each specific platform PS4 users will keep migrating to PS5 as usual in every generation as the older console sunsets. Even if this generation PS4 users are being retained there longer than usual because of release of more late content for the console than previous consoles had at this point, popular games as services still very active there, game subs giving them more content, old games getting attractive discounts, difficulty of finding PS5s in the stores or financial crysis that don't allow them to upgrade.

Again you're applying worlwide trends to Japan, which doesn't work. For example, worldwide PS total software units are likely to be higher than Switch. No one would argue that PS total software units are higher than Switch in Japan.

There's no data for Japan which makes it difficult to believe Switch generates more third party revenue in that particular country. We have data showing Switch is very likely to lead in terms of third party games sold in Japan, and we have 0 data on which platorm generates more F2P/DLC/IAP revenue in Japan.
I posted the worldwide official data of 3rd party sales for PS and Switch because it's the only complete 3rd party data we have, where there is a big lead. And being Japan one of the top countries for both should be somewhat representative.

The only Japanese data we have showing a Switch lead for 3rd party is an incomplete list of retail sales, which represent a minority of the total game sales and total game revenue because we know that today digital game sales represent a bigger portion of the market than retail sales, and also because add-ons (dlc, IAP etc) represent a key huge chunk of their revenue.
 
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Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
I don't understand why people keep moving the goal post so much. This topic is about the japanese market, and Nintendo won. Can't be argued at all.

That said, the PS5 is growing and doing better. Is it really so necessary to make all these comparisons? We already know the answer.

I just want Sony to not abandon the japanese market. Doesnt mean they have to match or beat Nintendo. That ship has already sailed..
 

Celine

Member
Some PlayStation fans are too deluded to understand that digital sales can't change much the weak display PlayStation is showing in Japan when the gulf between the Nintendo ecosystem and PlayStation ecosystem is already so one-sided with retail software.
During 2021 the PlayStation ecosystem (PS4+PS5) had less than 20% of software marketshare at retail and 2022 was every inch as lopsided in favour of Nintendo as 2021 was (and for those ones wondering, yes even in 2022 the majority of the software sales within the PlayStation ecosystem came from PS4 which is declining year after year).
Even if we include an absurd scenario like "50% digital ratio for the PlayStation ecosystem in Japan and 0% digital ratio for the Nintendo ecosystem" to the 2021 pie chart (see below) it would still show a picture in which Nintendo is dominant.

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Celine

Member
Even if we include an absurd scenario like "50% digital ratio for the PlayStation ecosystem in Japan and 0% digital ratio for the Nintendo ecosystem" to the 2021 pie chart (see below) it would still show a picture in which Nintendo is dominant.
Just a little addendum.
I called the scenario above "absurd" not just for the 0% digital ratio for game software sales on Nintendo ecosystem but also because an overall 50% digital ratio is a tall order in Japan (speaking of game releases with both a physical and a digital version).
As an example Nihon Falcom recently revealed, at a specific question in an investor meeting, that for them the digital ratio on PlayStation is below 20%.

Even applying an even more absurd scenario like "80% digital ratio for the PlayStation ecosystem in Japan and 0% digital ratio for the Nintendo ecosystem" to the 2021 pie chart, PS4+PS5 slices would still be below 50%.
As already stated, in Japan the gulf between Nintendo and PlayStation has simply become too large.
Something that has become increasingly obvious to anyone except the ones with their head stuck inside Sony's ass.
 
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Woopah

Member
I posted the worldwide official data of 3rd party sales for PS and Switch because it's the only complete 3rd party data we have, where there is a big lead. And being Japan one of the top countries for both should be somewhat representative.

The only Japanese data we have showing a Switch lead for 3rd party is an incomplete list of retail sales, which represent a minority of the total game sales and total game revenue because we know that today digital game sales represent a bigger portion of the market than retail sales, and also because add-ons (dlc, IAP etc) represent a key huge chunk of their revenue.
Worldwide hardware figures for 2022 will have Switch and PS5 selling very similar hardware numbers. Being that Japan is one of the top countries for both, would you expect the 2022 hardware sales there to be somewhat representative of this?

The only Japanese data we have showing a Switch lead for 3rd party is an incomplete list of retail sales, which represent a minority of the total game sales and total game revenue because we know that today digital game sales represent a bigger portion of the market than retail sales, and also because add-ons (dlc, IAP etc) represent a key huge chunk of their revenue.

The CESA data shows that on average 35.4% of PS4's software sales came from digital, and 64.6% came from retail. For Switch, 24% of software sales came from digital, and 76% came from retail. So retail is not a minority of total game sales, but instead a large majority of total game sales.

When third party software sales in Japan favour Switch, and we have no idea which platform generates more IAP/DLC revenue for third parties in Japan, we cannot say that it is very difficult to think that Switch would lead in overall third party revenue generated. None of the Japan data we have backs that up.
 
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Celine

Member
Worldwide hardware figures for 2022 will have Switch and PS5 selling very similar hardware numbers.
If we are talking about global sell-in, I don't think that will be the case.
When the holiday quarter sales figure will come in from Nintendo and Sony (I expect something along the line of ~20m vs ~15M in favour of NSW for CY2022).
Of course I know what you are traying to say: trends in UK are completely different from trends in Japan.
 
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Woopah

Member
If we are talking about global sell-in, I don't think that will be the case.
When the holiday quarter sales figure will come in from Nintendo and Sony (I expect something along the line of ~20m vs ~15M in favour of NSW for CY2022).
Of course I know what you are traying to say: trends in UK are completely different from trends in Japan.
It will depend on how the companies do against their targets. Their expectations are for 18 million PS5s and 19 million Switchs.

Either way, my main point is thay the raito of PS5/Switch hardware sales in Japan will not be representative of the the raito of PS5/Switch hardware sales worldwide. And that is one of the reasons we shouldn't apply worldwide trends to Japan.

And thank you for positng those graphs. It will be very interersting to see the 2022 figures. Third party sales for PS and Switch will probably be closer than in 2021 (due to a lack of MHR / Momotaro sized hit), but I would still expect Switch to have the lead.
 
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