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noshten on 10 June 2020
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Hynad said:
noshten said:
The bigger issue for PlayStation ecosystem is that by not making a system that is focused on it's home turf, it's likely their partners would lose relevance in their home nation. New studios and publishers will grow on the Nintendo ecosystem, which in turn might replace Sony's current partner studio/publishers in relevance in Japan.

Errr. The PS5 will still be sold in Japan. You don't need to have everything focused on Japan to get Japanese developers on board. If it sells well because the console is what Japanese gamers want, then Japanese developers who want to focus on that audience will get on board. 

Good thing many Japanese developers understand that their particular kind of games also have an audience outside of Japan, so they can continue to make those games.

If PS5 is not viable in Japan those games will also not be viable if they are exclusive. 

PS3/PS4/PSV had a lot of exclusive games that never made it to a Nintendo ecosystem. If this changes the results of the PS5 especially in it's first few years in Japan will be worst than PS4 transition. Just as a reminder during the first three years of the PS4 sold around 4M units. A majority of titles were cross-gen, AA games usually had a PSV version. This was all done because PS3/PS4 isn't attractive to the Japanese audience, so studios/publishers needed multiple platforms in order to be profitable. The same thing will happen with PS4/PS5, the majority of Japanese games will cross-gen but the difference is a lot of them will also be on the Switch. This will create additional competition which PS4 didn't really have when it launched since it was competing with the Wii U. 

Hardware Sales PS4 First Three Years:

  • 2014: 970.667
  • 2015: 1.330.410
  • 2016: 1.799.586

TOTAL: 4.100.667

Top 10 Japanese 3rd Party games 2014/2015/2016 Lifetime Sales: 

  1. 2016. Final Fantasy XV - 1.042.951
  2. 2015. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain - 448.554
  3. 2016. Dark Souls III - 407.637
  4. 2016. Persona 5 - 405.455
  5. 2016. Yakuza 6: The Song of Life - 367.965
  6. 2015. Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree - 329.934
  7. 2016. Dragon Quest Heroes II - 280.542
  8. 2015. Bloodborne - 231.609
  9. 2016. Tales of Berseria - 220.719
  10. 2016. Dragon Quest Builders - 213.581

TOTAL:4.354.584

Now out of those games Final Fantasy XV, Dark Souls III, Yakuza 6 and Bloodborne were exclusive to the PS4 the rest were cross-gen titles. I've included Bloodborne even though it was published by Sony but it's still the work of a 3rd Party Publisher.

Hardware Sales Switch First Three Years:

  • 2017: 3.407.158 
  • 2018: 3.482.388
  • 2019: 4.493.885

TOTAL:  11.383.431

If we compare this to Switch Top 10 Japanese 3rd Party games 2017/2018/2019 Lifetime sales

  1. 2019. Dragon Quest XI S - 520.693
  2. 2018. Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum 'n' Fun! - 475.437
  3. 2019. Fishing Spirits - 439.131
  4. 2019. Yo-kai Watch 4 - 358.356
  5. 2019. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - 312.574
  6. 2017. Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate - 309.596
  7. 2018. Dragon Quest Builders 2 - 295.237
  8. 2019. Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball - 225.614
  9. 2017. Super Bomberman R3 - 215.218
  10. 2018. Octopath Traveller - 193.780

TOTAL: 3.346.636

The games in bold are the ones that are exclusive to the Switch, now when the PS5 launches it will surely have some big exclusives but those would be hampered by the slow adoption of Japanese market of PS5, so it's very likely big Japanese publishers will opt to have cross-gen titles for at least the first two years of the PS5. The competition that the Switch brings will be much stronger than what PS4 faced. So anything Sony isn't paying for in terms of exclusivity might also be on the Switch... that's mainly those AA games that sell 50-200K on the PS4, losing a large portion of those titles which used to be exclusive to PlayStation ecosystem will also contribute to the slower growth compared to PS4. 

Also if the PS5 launches at a higher price compared to the PS4... than it might even struggle to sell 3M in its first three years on the market.