Japan sales (Week 50): Media Create/Famitsu/Dengeki - December 11-17

[Zekkyou]

OTBWY said:

Zekkyou said:

Long-term I'm expecting to see a lot of give and take in Japan. Outside of deals with Sony and Nintendo themselves, there's little reason for most Japanese developers to not have their previously Sony only, and Nintendo only IP start appearing on both the PS4 and Switch.

It's about which sells the most. That's the primary reason for support. When the Switch in Japan has more than double the sales of the PS4 in a few years, you can be 100% sure that the Switch will get more support than the PS4.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule, for example the attitude Falcom has displayed is one of loyalty to Sony (which it has a close relationship with since the PS1). The same can be said for certain studios and Nintendo. Some will simply not switch sides out of pure loyalty and not burning bridges in favor of making new ones. 

And lastly, there will surely be exceptions of titles that do break the exclusivity rule, like Valkyria or Inazuma Eleven. Or of course outright buying exclusivity like Sony has done with certain titles or Nintendo has done with Bayonetta.

While that's often true, there's usually a soft limit to how far sales stay relevant in this context (as we've seen with the PS4 and X1). I wouldn't be surprised if the Switch does get more support in some capacity (at minimum more sales do lead to a better position to make deals), but i expect the difference to be considerably smaller than it has been in previous generations. Few Japanese PS4/Vita titles make use of tech high end enough to cause significant porting problems to the Switch, and many 3DS developers are about to be pushed into HD development. Combine that with the the Switch's inevitable domestic strength, and the PS4's existing global (and decent domestic) reach, a developer would need a good reason to not support both by default. I think even the X1 will see an uptick in Japanese support over the next few years.