Famitsu sales: Week 49, 2021 - (29th Nov - 5th Dec)

[Mnementh]

src said:

Mnementh said:

"Is there any reason you think the PS4 worldwide userbase isn't going to PS5?"

We are talking about PS5 in Japan, and you bring up worldwide userbase. Secondly, there is a strong assumption, that customers have a high brand loyalty. If that were true, than WiiU would've taken at least half of the Wii userbase. But it didn't. Yes, there are fans of the brand that will take over, and they did buy the WiiU right from the start. But if a console sells 100M+ a lot of these customers aren't brand loyalists, and that is true for PS as well. Also the brand PS has taken damage in Japan especially, which is what we are talking about.

"Your prior post on how JP devs are going cope also made no sense. 10% of their sales are from Japan."

Thta is simply not true. You showed the data for it. Even for a strongly western focused company like Capcom, 10% of sales are the lower end of franchises, stuff that is highly successful in the West like Resident Evil. Even then, a loss of 10% of sales is nothing irrelevant. But 10% are the most western franchises. Monster Hunter has more like a third of it's sales in Japan. A land which has about 2% of world population. And that is Capcom. What is with NIS, Level-5, Nihon Falcom, Spike Chunsoft, Koei, Mistwalker, Grasshopper? They are not fine with dwindling sales on PS in Japan. So the truth is they look elsewhere. A lot of these companies already shifted a lot of focus towards PC, mobile or Switch, and if software sales on PS5 stay that bad, this will continue.

You seem to assume Japan devs are Capcom and Square. And even for them the japanese game market is important for franchises like Monster Hunter and Dragon Quest.

• Missing the point. I'm saying Japan is <10% for many JP franchises. JP publishers are not going to abandon PS or even go multiplat just because they are losing <5% sales.

• SE : FF15, FF7R, FF14, KH3, Nier, Octopath, Bravely Default ~ 85-90% overseas
• CAPCOM : RE, SF, Dragons Dogma, MvC, DMC, ~ 90% overseas
• NB : Naruto, DB, Tales, Tekken, Ace Combat, SoulCaliber, Ni No Kuni, Code Vein, ~ 90% overseas
• SEGA : Persona, Catherine, Sonic, Valkyria Chronicles, Total War, Football manager ~ 90% overseas
• KT : Nioh, KTs best selling game of all time ~ 90% overseas
• FROM SOFTWARE : Souls, Bloodborne, Elden Ring ~ 90% overseas

These are the biggest JP publishers and nearly all their games get their sales from overseas. The fact that you have to resort to extremely niche companies (even then Danganronpa sold most overseas, pretty sure Falcom makes more overseas and L5 has cratered its big IPs and now its biggest, Ni No Kuni, sells most overseas, lmao at Mistwalker), says everything about how irrelevant the domestic market is to JP gaming companies relative to the West.

SEGA, SE, Capcom, NB have all gone to their investors and mentioned massive investment in the West. Hardly any of them mentioned that in Japan.

"JP publishers are not going to abandon PS or even go multiplat just because they are losing <5% sales."

Then you go on and list a lot of franchises that all have 10%+ in Japan. For a country with less than 2% of world population. Funny, how your own data contradicts your statements.

And that is with cherry-picked developers (no NIS, Falcom, Spike Chunsoft, Mistwalker, Level-5, Grasshopper) and with cherry-picked franchises (no Monster Hunter, no Dragon Quest). And yes, Monster Hunter and Dragon Quest are very important IPs for SE and Capcom. So even by leaving out all the software that has a bigger sales in Japan, you fail to support your own make-believe scenario.

I never said anything about abandonign PS, only shifting focus to PC, mobile and Switch. Which is already happening for a lot of these companies. I don't think Capcom will not release RE on PS, but I hardly believe it will be exclusive, if Sony isn't paying for that. And if you think japanese devs will ignore a market that makes more than 10% of their sales because they are such big PS fanboys that they are unwilling to look past that ecosystem, you lie to yourself.

BTW: Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity sold more than Nioh, so that isn't KTs best selling game anymore. Also Nioh sold as far as I can see about 20% in Japan.

Last edited by Mnementh - on 12 December 2021