There's like 3 or 4 non-Nintendo Japanese franchises that are really viable in the West, Final Fantasy is one of them and even that is declining. I don't see FFXV actually *selling through* numbers beyond FFXIII. 

S-E got bailed out a bit by overshipping, but that does not come without a price either, retailers will remember that next time once they have a ton of these swimming around in the discount bin. 

Anyone who thinks this is a healthy situation, well it just reminds of me of this comic strip

This is not funny, really. I think OP is exaggerating a bit, but the japanese industry's future will rely on Switch's success (or failure) indeed.

Why? Because now there is no 3DS or 100% portable system from Nintendo anymore, so that's 1 less huge system there. There probably won't be a Vita successor either, so another big system not being there. So that leaves just PS4 and Switch and their successors, as Xbox is insignificant there. So, as you can see, the entire japanese industry can't rely only on 1 system (PS4 and future Playstations)... that's simply not viable. Especially since it doesn't even sell that well (will be lucky to surpass 10m consoles sold). That's why they need the Switch to succeed: it's another viable platform to develop for and since japanese games rarely are demanding, I'm sure 99% of third parties could develop one version for one console and port it to the other one without much hurdles. I think this will benefit PS4 as well, since it makes the chances of japanese third parties succeding bigger.

Switch needs to succeed in Japan becuase it would be the only viable system in Japan. If it fails, that's it for the Japanese game industry, most of them are going to end up working on iOS/Android once their bosses start to cave one by one to investor pressure because there will be no viable userbase of traditional game hardware in Japan. 

PS4's sales rate isn't getting it done in Japan, Nintendo is the only one who can still move millions of systems in Japan relatively quickly. 

This! 

Switch needs to sell 20 million. In Japan, alone. It needs to hold 3DS numbers there to keep Japan viable as a traditional gaming nation. 

And third parties need to help Nintendo get there. The Playstation doesn't have an audience for things like JPRGs because Sony makes JRPGs. They have that because every third party makes those games for them. 

Well it's high time these developers helped Nintendo in the same way. If Nintendo is going to have any chance of rescuing the Japanese game industry from self imploding onto itself, it's time for Japanese devs to rally around Nintendo and help them like they did with the Famicom and Super Famicom. 

Nintendo can't do it alone, even though they are going to try as hard as they can. Mario and Pikachu are ready to fight from the looks of it. Are Cloud and Snake and company just going to sit on the sidelines and watch them? Lets see what happens. I hope Japanese developers realize what's at stake and act with appropriate haste. 

The next 3 years I think could determine the fate of the Japanese game market. If it goes badly, then I think there's no coming back. Japan is headed to an iOS/Android gaming future where console gaming is niche and virtually any/all A-AAA traditional game development is null and void. If Nintendo can gain some traction and build an ecosystem that is working well, then there is hope. 

Yup I agree. The only reason a Japanese game should not have a Switch version at this rate is if it absolutely, postively, no way at all can run on the Switch, but I don't believe there's even that many games out there from Japan that exist. 

If Dragon Quest XI and Dark Souls III can run on Switch, and they could make a perfectly playable version of MGSV for PS3/360 (probably the second most ambitious Japanese title of this generation) ... just about any game should be workable on a Switch from a Japanese developer. It just requires a little effort from the developer doing the port.

You can reduce the resolution and effects, Japanese gamers don't care about that stuff any way. 

People need to get out of their feelings and understand that Soundwave has a point! Square themselves have stated they need to sell 10 million copies of FFXV just to break even. So when does it start to become feasible for Square to continue to make these types of games if they barely clear that number?

Everyone seems okay with these Japanese developers trying to cater to the Western audience by losing their core fans in the process, but that would kill the purpose of the Japanese cultured game styles existing in the first place. It's almost like asking for all of the anime studios to cater their shows more to the western markets to try and gain potential sells that may or may not be there!

This thread has turned into a plea to help Japanese game makers help Nintendo instead of themselves. Basically S/E would look at a massive downscaling of operations if they just retreated back into the Japanese market. And forget simultaneous releases. It'll go back to long waits for the west to get these games. Anyway. Games will always exist in some form in Japan. I don't know why it's up to Nintendo to save them. Nintendo's still trying to figure things out for themselves.

Well, I would love to see mainline FF games come to Nintendo, so yes! :p

Sigh. How many times are people going to bring up this erroneous statement.

Also there are millions of people outside of Japan that love Japan's culture. You think people love anime for their incredible writing? lol