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Metallicube on 23 April 2010
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UncleScrooge said:
Metallicube said:
gekkokamen said:
Sony is on the verge of regaining its dominance in Japan.

Eh not exactly.. DS technically beat PSP this week if you count all versions and PS3 and Wii are neck and neck. Dominace for Sony in Japan was when PS2 was selling 60k a week while Gamecube was selling 20k.

Wii still has a 5+ million lead on the PS3. Not what I'd call Sony dominance.

I can finally use this graph now!  (sorry for the bad quality, I just copied and pasted it )

 

This graph shows the yearly market share for Japan for all the big companies (courtesy of VGChartz and Media Create).

So what can we see here? First Sony never "dominated" in Japan. Historically Nintendo always was the biggest player in Japan (not in Europe, though, for instance). There was a time during the PSX hype and the Playstation 2 launch when Sony had more marketshare but overall Nintendo never really lost its leading position - and the PocketStation is even included in this graph and that thing sold pretty damn well (almost on par with the Gameboy for some time) so it's actually a rather fair comparism.

The reason why we get the feeling Nintendo is loosing right now is because of the DS explosion, when Nintendo's market share increased dramatically. Basically it is back to normal now (the reason why it looks like Sony is on the verge of beating Nintendo this year is because Nintendo consoles tend to sell more during Christmas so Nintendo's market share usually increases during the second half of the year). Between the 3DS launch, the rumoured PSP2 launch and everything else 2010 could very well end with almost no change in market share compared to last year.

I know you guys have a very good idea of this anyways but to me it's always helpful to visualize things to get a better picture (although the picture, admittedly, is a bit blurry this time)

 

Interesting graph. Didn't realize how close Nintendo's share was to Sony's even during those "dark ages" of Nintendo in the late 90s-early 2000s. I guess the Gameboy helped keep them afloat. Funny to see Sega hanging somewhat near Nintendo then just drop like a rock and then Sony rise from the ashes of their grave. Sony killed Sega :(. Just as I was starting to like them they dropped off from the console market.

I guess what I was refering too was Sony console dominance in Japan, which has only recently dwindled with the introduction of the Wii, but now that seems to be equalizing a little. Will be interesting to see how the marketshare pans out in the coming years. I think between the 3DS and the lift Wii should get from games like Galaxy 2, Zelda Wii, and especially the big one, DQX, we should see the marketshare begin to separate again in Nintendo's favor.