noshten on 11 September 2020
Top 100 PS4
- SIE & SCE - 21
- Square Enix - 17
- Bandai Namco - 11
- Konami - 10
- Sega - 9
- Capcom - 6
- EA - 5
- Koei Tecmo - 4
- Ubisoft - 4
- From Software - 3
- Atlus - 3
- Spike Chunsoft - 2
- Take-Two - 2
- D3 Publisher - 1
- Nihon Falcom - 1
- Bethesda - 1
1st Party TOTAL: 5.598.996
3rd Party TOTAL: 23.029.517
Considering PS4 is at the end of its life and I don't expect the Top 100 to change all that much 23 million considering the level of support provided by 3rd Parties in Japan isn't exactly a high bar for the Switch. Honestly, I expect the Switch's 3rd Party total to surpass the PS4 by the end of next year.
- Square Enix: 7.123.115 (Top Selling game: DQXI)
- SIE & SCE: 5.598.996 (Top Selling game: COD:BO4)
- Capcom: 4.354.010 (Top Selling game: MHW)
- Konami: 2.136.820 (Top Selling game: MGSV)
- Sega: 1.869.675 (Top Selling game: Yakuza 6)
- Bandai Namco: 1.799.628 (Top Selling game: Tales of Berseria)
- Square is in an interesting position as the Top PS4 publisher because they actually sold 8.11 million physical software on the 3DS with just 18 games. Personally I don't think their efforts on the Switch thus far have been all that impressive, but I hope that to change in the coming years. Future games like Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest and Bravely Default should be muliplat in order for them to continue seeing growth, I don't see anything but a decline for FF, KH, and DQ if they somehow end up exclusive on the Playstation ecosystem
- I honestly don't see Konami throwing as many exclusives at the PS5 without Sony paying for it. Konami have completely stopped making AAA Games but I do expect an MGS collection at some point on both the PS4/PS5 and Switch
- Capcom's strategy is clear outside of ports and a Monster Hunter Switch their support will be behind Sony, but as we can see Resident Evil continues to decline in Japan and without MHW they would be behind Konami in the list
- Sega's relevance is fading fast and they've not really tried to build an audience on the Switch.
- While Bandai is in a particular position where their Switch games have actually already surpassed their PS4 Total thanks to evergreens like Taiko and Fishing Spirits. Overall their leadership continues to give Switch late ports that have no chance of performing as well
- It would be interesting to follow but I don't expect 3rd Parties sales to surpass 11.5M sales on the PS5 unless someone finally creates a PS5 evergreen or Sony pays Square, Konami, Capcom & Bandai a bunch of money to keep their games off the Switch.
- Overall the competition with the Switch is already pretty one-sided, and a digital-only PS5 isn't likely to be that popular in Japan considering the second-hand market while we can look at the PS3 at how the more expensive PS5 will perform during it's the launch year
- No other 3rd Party pub has surpassed 1M physical sales on the PS4 from the Top 100, Atlus and From Software are the closest with about 750-850K sales
- In terms of 1st Party Western games actually dominate Sony's output on the PS4, COD/Minecraft/GoT/Spiderman, etc it's very likely we would see a big decline on the PS5 for Sony as well in Japan unless they can replicate GoT success, I mean we've seen new IPs on unpopular hardware such as the Wii U & Splatoon sale beyond 1 million, it's just about Sony perhaps trying to create something that appeals to the Japanese Market
- As far as Western 3rd Party the Top-Selling one isn't all that surprising GTAV will probably be one of the biggest games this holiday on the PS5, next up is Rainbow 6 which performed surprisingly well in Japan, while in third place we see Battlefield 1, overall if Western 3rd Parties remain exclusive on the PS5 they should also see a considerable decline in their sales for Japan
