Will this be the last year PS4 outsells Switch?

[Bofferbrauer2]

Hiku said:

Bofferbrauer2 said:

This was probably true last year, when the publishers were wary after the Wii U's failure, but by now it's more and more becoming the exception rather than the rule. With PS4 sales plateauing in Japan ans Switch Pacmaning the sales there, there's just little incentive to leave out the Switch anymore, even moreso since sales worldwide are not very far apart between the two.

If there were no hardware issue, it would be as simple as that. But you can look at the Wii as an example of why sales don't mean the system will be properly supported by high profile Japanese games. Instead of Resident Evil 5 and 6, Wii got a port of a previous gen game, Resident Evil 4. Instead of the Final Fantasy XIII series, it got the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles series. No Kingdom Hearts, no Street Fighter, Tekken, Marvel vs Capcom, Devil May Cry, it missed most Tales games, Dynasty Warriors games, and the list goes on and on.
What Japanese third party developers did instead was that rather than bringing over mainline games from their most popular franchises, they would develop games specifically designed for Wii. Often times just to get in on the wiimote trend.

Right now with the Switch, it's been more than a year and it's still sticking with the same trend from the year before. If a game isn't running on an engine from PS3/360 era, and/or running at 60fps, we're not seeing them being announced for Switch. With the exception of Dragon Quest XI, as far as I can recall at least. And we still haven't seen a single screenshot from the Switch version, and it is having some development issues that has pushed it back to at least 2019 from the sound of it. (It came out in early 2017 in Japan.)

Here's a list of non-indie Japanese PS4 games announced for 2018 and beyond that are not known to have any exclusivity agreement.
Also because there are so many obscure Japanese titles releasing every month, I'll limit it to more well known franchises, or games from big developers/publishers. 
I'll put a checkmark next to the ones that are also announced for Switch.

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth
Monster Hunter: World
Dragon Ball FighterZ (Although rumored to be announced at E3. We'll see in a few days.)
Dissidia Final Fantasy NT
Dynasty Warriors 9
Metal Gear Survive
Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet
Devil May Cry HD Collection
Yakuza 6
Yakuza Kiwami
Yakuza Kiwami 2
Persona 3 Dancing Moon Night
Persona 5 Dancing Star Night
Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown
Code Vein
Dragon's Crown Pro
Fist of the North Star
Kingdom hearts III
Final Fantasy VII: Remake
Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker
SoulCalibur VI
Dead or Alive 6
One Piece: World Seeker
Granblue Fantasy Project Re: Link
Resident Evil 2 Remake (No platform has been announced, but we can be sure one of them will be PS4.)
New Gundam Breaker
Devil May Cry 5
Valkyria Chronicles 4 ✓
Lost Sphear ✓
Attack on Titan 2 ✓
Megaman 11 ✓
Dragon Quest XI ✓
Dark Souls: Remastered ✓
BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle ✓

Japanese PS4 games headed for Switch is still very much the exception rather than the rule. But what's particularly interesting to note here out of the games also announced for Switch, is that they're following the trend of running on last gen engines (or in Megaman 11's case, a rather primitive one) with the exception of Dragon Quest XI. (And that one has, as I mentioned, ran into development issues for the Switch version. (So did Dark Souls Remastered btw))
Just like every previous PS4 to Switch game I can think of, and/or where they've cut the framerate in half, or worse. (I Am Setsuna, Dragon Quest Warriors 2, Doom, Sonic Forces, etc.)

So until I see even one single example of a PS4 & Switch game where this isn't the case, that's where I set the bar for what kind of games I'm expecting in the future.
That's why Dragon Quest XI will be particularly interesting for me to see. Although it being the first Switch third party game announced so many years ago and it doesn't look like it'll be out until at least 2019, it's not a great look for how much effort it can take. But I still want to see how it turns out.

For Monster Hunter World, Nintendo didn't get invited to the talks, which were before even the Switch was announced. This could also be the same problem for some other titles in the list, especially if they were meant to sell in the west like it was the case for MHW. They did get an XX port instead for now.

For those in italics, those IPs have either never been on a Nintendo console (DMC, Yakuza), or not since SNES days (Final Fantasy mainline entries). Pretty clear there's no intention to bring those to a Nintendo console even if it were more powerful than the Playstation of it's time (like the Gamecube did).

With Gundam I'm not sure, but I think  I read that there is an exclusivity deal here.