The Japanese market is fun because its the only one that has completely free information, as oposed to the US and European markets we get numbers for hardware and software on a weekly basis and from even more than one tracker!
For fun I'm going to show you just what has happened on the industry during the first half of 2015, now technically 2015 can't be splited into 2 halfs as its an anomaly that will last 53 weeks opposed to the usual 52, but as that's the case this thread would be made after results of week 26 and that's what I'm doing.
One last thing, the thread will be split into hardware and software talk: Software is from Famitsu, Hardware is from Media Create.
Software (we're only discussing retail, btw)
As it has been during the last few years, the 3DS has the mayority of the software charts with 9 of the 20 best selling games being on the system, its also worth nothing that the best selling game of the year wasn't released in 2015, just like in 2014, and just like in 2014 that game is Yokai Watch.
Impressive as well are the legs of Mario Kart 8 still selling really well over a year after its release and for Fire Emblem Fates to be so high with only one week counting.
Onto a breakdown by system.
Usually the first half of the year is relatively quiet for the 3DS, with some games released on the previous year ranking high, such is the case here, Zelda and Fire Emblem were the system's biggest releases.
This chart is very polarising, the top of it its very positive as Splatoon, a brand new IP, is selling really well, and games like Mario Kart and Smash Bros, are still doing great months after their release. Then again the bottong is depressing with a sub 5k release; also bear in mind that this is nearly all WiiU games released this year I was seriously afraid there wouldn't be enough to fill the list, missing are Mario vs. Donkey Kong and Rodea (which didn't even chart on Famitsu).
The aging PS3 keeps doing well in 2015 with the best selling console game on the year so far.
Now with constant releases the PS4 is also doing very good, noteworthy here are the legs of GTAV that its still randomly showing up on Famitsu's Top 30 and the results of The Witcher III.
Vita is the system that gets the most releases throughout the year, however most of them usually last one or two weeks on the chart, so its software results aren't all that surprising, but are by no means bad, Minecraft is doing amazingly well as its pretty much carried the system alone since its release, results of Persona 4: DAN are also great considering its only one week.
No table for Xbox One as only 2 games made it to Famitsu's Top 30.
Now, even when title is clear just to make it abundandly clear, this is the number of games that have made it to Famitsu's Top 30 throughout the year, not the number of releases for the year. As said before PSV leads this chart while WiiU and Xbox One results are very dissapointing.
Note that this is rather the bare minimum ammount of software sold per console as it only counts data of software that made it to Famitsu's Top 30, unreported legs aren't added. however the margin of error isn't too high, so while the numbers are a little off the ranking isn't.
The 3DS is still carrying the industry almost all by itself with well over twice as much software as its follow up, also noteworthy is how the PS3 is still pushing more software than the WiiU and the PS4.
Nintendo remains the king of Japan as far as software is conderned, as far as releases Bandai Namco takes that spot releasing a new game almost every week of the year.
Level 5 hasn't released a game this year, its impressive how Yokai Watch is carrying them.
Hardware
Everything is down year on year which isn't very surprising, PS4 is doing really well though as it's competing with its 2014 launch so for the difference to be so small is encoraging, the system is likely to be up YoY which is very good, what its surprising is that the WiiU might also be up YoY with Splatoon having lifted software sales much more than Mario Kart 8 did last year, however 2014 was awful for it, so the question is if its up, by how much.
The original 3DS models as well as the PS3 are experiencing a complete colapse, but seeing how they're being fased its expected.
Less than 10.000 Xbox Ones sold in 6 months, why did they even bother.
Here you get a better look on how the systems have grown throughout the year, specially the PS4.
Xbox One and PSVTV are nearly a flat line.
On SKUs PS4 nearly reached 25% market share which is very impressive considering the state of consoles in Japan, that advantage is going away during the summer, but its it'll be interesting to see how it performs after August.
Combining data you can see how the 3DS remains the top dog in Japan with the PS4 a somewhat distant second.
And to end things, marketshare by brand, PlayStation is just barely edging out Nintendo here, it'll be interestig to see how this changes throughout the year, Xbox nearly non existant.
So yeah.
:T
