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Farsala on 28 November 2020
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RolStoppable said:

Farsala said:

"PS sales aren't declining in Japan because of a major loss of interest in console gaming, they are declining because people buy Nintendo consoles instead."

@"Quote" They aren't declining from a major loss of interest in console gaming but they aren't declining because people are buying Nintendo consoles instead...

Using Vgchartz for simplicity sake, and XB always assumed at remaining 1% or less. (no PS2)

end of 2006- Nintendo: 79%, Sony 20%

2007- Nintendo: 71%, Sony 28%

2008- Nintendo: 59%, Sony 40%

2009- Nintendo: 59%, Sony 40%

2010- Nintendo: 50%, Sony 49%

2011- Nintendo: 59%, Sony 40%

2012- Nintendo: 70%, Sony 29%

2013- Nintendo: 70%, Sony 29%

2014- Nintendo: 58%, Sony 41%

2015- Nintendo: 56%, Sony 43%

2016- Nintendo: 70%, Sony 29%

2017- Nintendo: 68%, Sony 31%

2018- Nintendo: 79%, Sony 20%

 end of 2019 to date- Nintendo: 88%, Sony 11%

Nintendo has always held dominance aside from when the PSP came out, and while the PSV held the tide a bit, it succumbed quickly. The big difference is 2019, but that is simply because Sony doesn't have handhelds anymore, and sales are bad during console transitions. If the imaginary PSV 2 sold only 1m, then the marketshare would be 75%/24%. Overall the marketshare is rather stable up to this point. The next years could change that.

@ Switch 30m, what is your yearly breakdown for that?

Calling the market share stable doesn't sound right when Nintendo went from ~60% to ~80%.

As for a yearly breakdown, Switch will end 2020 at ~17.5m (I hope I am remembering this correctly), so going from there I see it selling something like 5m, 4m, 3m, 2m and then fizzle out over the following years. In Japan Switch is closer to the saturation point than anywhere else in the world, so a steady decline has to be expected despite revisions and price cuts in the coming years, unless Nintendo puts out a revision so substantial that they'll get a high repurchase rate. Whether they'll be able to pull that off is up in the air, hence why I said 30m+ and not ~30m.


Nintendo had 80% or better in the first period I posted, as well as many times in the years before when Sony did not have a handheld. I listed the entire double Handheld era aside from end of 2005-2006. The way VGC does their charts really throws me off... But anyways expect lower than usual Sony/Nintendo marketshare during transition periods vs peak periods. Sony might actually win a year in marketshare with their lowest selling console...