noshten on 19 December 2020
Famitsu 2020 Top 50:
- NSW: Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo) - 6.175.256
- NSW: Ring Fit Adventure (Nintendo) - 1.474.151
- NSW: Pokemon Sword / Shield (Pokemon Co) - 935.105* (+1)
- PS4: Final Fantasy VII Remake (Square Enix) - 932.821 (-1)
- NSW: Momotaro Dentetsu (Konami) - 755.084 (+1)
- NSW: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo) - 685.525 (-1)
- NSW: Smash Ultimate (Nintendo) - 473.460
- NSW: Minecraft (Microsoft) - 473.358
- NSW: Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics (Nintendo) - 455.474
- NSW: Super Mario 3D All-Stars (Nintendo) - 427.367 (+1)
- PS4: Ghost of Tsushima (Sony) - 412.868 (-1)
- NSW: Super Mario Party (Nintendo) - 394.184
- NSW: Splatoon 2 (Nintendo) - 377.373
- NSW: Pikmin 3 Deluxe (Nintendo) - 367.461
- NSW: Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training (Nintendo) - 290.691
- NSW: Paper Mario: The Origami King (Nintendo) - 267.743
- NSW: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX (Pokemon Co.) - 259.513
- PS4: Resident Evil 3 (Capcom) - 258.676
- NSW: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (Koei Tecmo) - 255.964 (+2)
- NSW: eBaseball Powerful Pro Baseball 2020 (Konami) - 248.024 (-1)
- PS4: Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon (Sega) - 243.769 (-1)
- NSW: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo) - 223.290 (+1)
- PS4: The Last of Us Part II (Sony) - 222.943 (-1)
- NSW: New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (Nintendo) - 203.147
- NSW: Super Mario Maker 2 (Nintendo) - 197.495
- NSW: Luigi's Mansion 3 (Nintendo) - 187.050
- NSW: Fishing Spirits (Bandai Namco) - 185.054 (+1)
- PS4: eBaseball Powerful Pro Baseball 2020 (Konami) - 180.243 (-1)
- PS4: Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs. MaxiBoost On (Bandai Namco) - 161.014
- PS4: Nioh 2 (Koei Tecmo) - 156.772
- PS4: Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers (Atlus) - 149.898
- PS4: Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot (Bandai Namco) - 149.654
- NSW: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games: Tokyo 2020 (Sega) - 138.550
- PS4 Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War (Sony) - 133.930
- PS4: Trials of Mana (Square Enix) - 133.593
- PS4: One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 (Bandai Namco) - 131.315
- NSW: Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition (Nintendo) - 128.989
- NSW: One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 (Bandai Namco) - 117.954
- PS4: Granblue Fantasy Versus (Cygames) - 111.094
- NSW: Super Mario Odyssey (Nintendo) - 109.535 (+5)
- PS4: Cyberpunk 2077 (Spike Chunsoft) - 104.687 NEW
- NSW: Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum 'n' Fun! (Bandai Namco) - 101.707 (-2)
- NSW: Dragon Quest XI S (Square Enix) - 101.956
- NSW: Trials of Mana (Square Enix) - 100.451 (-3)
- PS4: The Legend of Heroes: Hajimari no Kiseki (Nihon Falcom) - 96.140 (-3)
- NSW: Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit (Nintendo) - 95.897 (-3)
- NSW: Derby Stallion (Game Addict) - 91.155 (+1)
- PS4: Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris (Bandai) - 85.010 (-2)
- NSW: Hatsune Miku: Project Diva MegaMix (Sega) - 78.558 (-2)
- NSW: Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers (Atlus) - 65.653 (-1)
TOTAL: 20.106.601
NSW TOTAL: 15.946.665 (81.7%)
PS4 TOTAL: 3.664.427 (18.3%)
Top Publishers:
- Nintendo - 12.534.088 (62%)
- Square Enix - 1.256.166 (6%)
- Pokemon Co - 1.194.618 (6%)
- Konami - 1.183.351 (6%)
- Bandai Namco - 931.708 (5%)
- Sony - 769.741 (4%)
- Microsoft - 473.358 (2%)
- Sega - 460.877 (2%)
- Koei Tecmo - 412.736 (2%)
- Capcom - 258.676 (1%)
- Atlus - 215.551 (1%)
- Spike Chunsoft has the biggest launch for the publisher this year with Cyberpunk 2077, but there is worries that the buggy nature of the PS4 version will make it crash out of the Top 30 next week. Depending on how much they spent to market the game in Japan it might turn out this was not profitable short term but perhaps next year when the game is fixed we will see a resurgence. Overall I had completely forgotten about Cyberpunk 2077, which has turned out to be the swan song for the PS4 in 2020. For Playstation ecosystem the end this year will be remembered for Ghost of Tsushima finding success, while the rest of the game launched on the system largely under-performed.
- For Konami things are looking exceptionally good. As they will end the year as the #2 Publisher in Japan, Momotaro is looking like it will have a strong performance in 2021, and they have a lot of potential investment they need to make as their other business ventures were hard hit by COVID. Still on the gaming side, they will probably experience their biggest YoY growth in a decade. eBaseball 2020 also is widely successful the combined SKUs will probably end up above 500K physical in Japan alone. With digital they might be close to their 2012 result when they sold over 2.7 million software in the Top 1000 games in Japan.
- Pokemon Co will experience a big drop YoY due to the lack of a Pokemon game in the fall, but this will lead to Pokemon Sword / Shield shipments to eventually catch-up to Gold / Silver which sold 6 million. Next year will be a strong year for the Pokemon Co as Pokemon Snap will perform far stronger than Mystery Dungeon and there is very likely a big fall Pokemon game planned.
- Square Enix this year will see a big drop compared to 2019, in the end DQXIS launch last year enabled Square to see some YoY growth last year. But they were unable to maintain it as Avengers just exited the Top 50 and is emblematic of their fortunes in 2020. Bravely Default 2 could have allowed them to keep themselves flat but in the end COVID delayed the game and Square themselves admitted they had a lot of difficulty adapting to the new-normal.
- Bandai is by far the biggest YoY loser on the chart, because of Taiko and Fishing Spirits the company had seen two years of growth but their strategy with a lot of their releases ended up hurting them this year. Adding a Switch SKUs to some of their games could have kept them flat in 2020 or even allowed them to make some gains but instead Mobile Suit Gundam, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, Sword Art Online: Alicization, One Punch Man were all PlayStation exclusives that didn't lead to franchise growth or great results.
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