VGChartz Sales Comparison Charts September 2021 Discussion Thread

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Kyuu said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

If you don't see PS5 being threatened in Japan, then you aren't paying attention.  Switch games have dominated the Famitsu top 30 all year, both 1st party and 3rd party.  PS5 games, on the other hand, fall off the chart after the 2nd week.  

Most Japanese games now get a version on the Switch and a fair amount are Switch exclusive.  Each year this is going to trend even more in the Switch's favor, because third party companies are not going to want to make games for a system where they will lose a ton of money.  The player base in Japan is all on the Switch, and they have little reason to get a PS5.  The games end up going where the player base is.

You insisted PS5 was in deep trouble on a global level... not just in Japan.

1. Japan is a tiny market for globally relevant Japanese 3rd party games with the exceptions of Monster Hunter and Dragon Quest, both of which performed super well on Playstation 4 despite its lack of portability and the relatively small install base.

2. The Vita-esque and indie games that are charting there are a non-factor in the rest of the world, where the vast majority of revenue comes from. Will Square Enix, Capcom, and From Software look at Momotaro Dentetsu's numbers and go "Let's bring our AA and AAA games there. We can definitely replicate that level of success! To hell with ambitious games and global sales!"? The clear answer is no.

3. PS4 is now a dead platform and PS5 is yet to take off (scalpers/exports). Switch dominating the charts is a given, especially when half the list consists of 1st party titles.

4. Last I checked, digital ratios were much higher on Playstation systems, and could be even higher now on PS5 which has a Digital Edition. Physical charts don't paint the whole picture; the information we have is incomplete. Would adding digital sales save Playstation numbers from embarrassment? No, but it will make a difference in multiplat comparisons.

The 3rd party games charting in Japan aren't setting the global charts on fire, and they do not represent the sales trends of bigger homeconsole-esque titles (B, A, AA, or AAA) where Playstation continues to somehow keep up with Nintendo platforms there. Quite a feat for a dead platform!! (Not really... 3rd parties are just in a really bad shape over there, even on Switch).

Long gone are the days of Japan (as a region) representing a large share of their own games' sales. Switch is failing to change this because form factor wasn't Playstation's only weakness. Nintendo's cultural significance, reputation, and legs won't automatically carry over to the 3rd party stuff. Monster Hunter grew massive in the west, and yet it somewhat declined in Japan. Global 3rd party trends just don't apply to Japan regardless of platforms. Nintendo's titles are on a league of their own, they aren't confined by the limits of 3rd parties, Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter included.

Kakadu18 said:

Most Japanese third parties are already supporting the Switch and selling mostly there too. The ones that sell better on Playstation, like Samurai Warriors 5, have better legs on Switch and sell better there than the franchise historically did. With each year the entire Japanese market leans more and more towards the Switch for obvious reasons.
The only big Japanese developers that stubbornly don't release their games on the Switch are Bandai Namco studios.

How much that benefits Switch hardware sales exactly I don't know, but it definitly doesn't help PS.

The majority of million selling or fairly high budget "home console tier" games/franchises continue to skip Nintendo platforms. Not counting Sony funded/published games:
PES, Yakuza, Judgement, Virtua Fighter, Tekken, Soul Calibur, Street Fighter 5, MvC4, Guilty Gear, mainline Final Fantasy, FFXIV Online + expansions, NieR, Persona 5, Kingdom Hearts 3, DS3/Sekiro/Elden Ring, Tales of Arise, Devil May Cry 5, mainline Resident Evil, Scarlet Nexus, Granblue Fantasy Versus, Granblue Fantasy Relink, Project Awakening, Babylon's Fall, Pragmata, Forspoken, etc.

He thought Switch would be the go to system for Japanese third parties on a global level. About time we acknowledge that the current Japanese chart trends have little to no bearing on the decisions of major publishers. And multiplats aren't outperforming their Playstation counterpart to convincing levels in Japan; PS4 is a DEAD platform and PS5's situation is riddled with questions. Most multiplats on PS4 + Switch are selling worse or much worse than their predecessors on peak PS4 + Vita (But digital sales have grown since, and we have no access to that data); peak PS4 + Vita era was a joke in an of itself when compared to older generations.

Install bases in Japan don't dictate support, 3rd party sales don't scale very well with Nintendo install bases. There are multiple factors Japanese publishers look into before deciding where their games go. This explains the countless titles skipping Switch. Even Xbox One is better supported (for globally relevant Japanese games). Xbox One is a nonexistant console in Japan, but it's carried by its ease of porting and moderate global success.

It is clear that Playstation + PC continue being the home for relevant Japanese games. Capcom expects 50% of their sales to come from PC in the not-distant future. Which would be huge for Capcom because PC is 100% digital and platform taxes are smaller there. None of this fits gracefully into The_Liquid_Laser's wild expectations lol.

https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread/236417/will-this-be-the-last-year-ps4-outsells-switch/21/

"Relevant Japanese titles" is a confirmation bias term.  Q: How do we know if a title isn't relevant?  A: If it's on the Switch then it is immediately counted as not relevant.  You only count the games that reinforce your point and none of the others (i.e. the majority).  That's confirmation bias.

In reality every title matters.  Ten games that sell 1 million copies are worth 1 game that sells 10 million copies.  Having a lot of little games actually does matter.  In most generations, the system with the really big selling titles have the majority of the small titles too.  It might appear the small titles don't matter, but that is not actually the case.  All of those little Japanese titles going over to the Switch actually matter.

Historically, there is one well known system that had big selling games but very few little games.  It was the N64.  The PS5 has a whole lot in common with the N64.