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There is also another factor, Japan hardware sales this decade are generally over 6 million
However with the decline of the PS brand into irrelevance with the PS5 and consolidations of handheld and console lines by Nintendo means that now a single platform carries 80% of that weight
So its difficult to imagine with 90% of the software market consolidated to a single platform - that platform to have a big decline YoY during it's software peak
Even 2023 should be above 3.5 million for the Switch - unless a successor is revealed Japanese folks don't have much alternatives
That's the main reason I think Switch will end up the best selling system in Japan and wont have huge declines until successor is released. However I don't really expect one until late 2023 or early 2024.

I don't expect much of a resurgence for the PS in 2022 as supply chain problems continue and other markets continue to make most of the demand for the system, it will be another year of software declines until supply chain problems are solved - since it would continue to be attractive item for reselling outside of Japan. Leaving us in a situation where software continues to be anemic compared to past systems. Meanwhile PS4 which managed over 2 million software in 2021 is likely to decline further and I doubt PS5 software sales will make up the difference. 

The only way I can see solving this is more PS4s being sold in Japan, like 500-800K for next year so some respectable results are achieved by the crossgen games. Until Sony can meet demand for PS5, Japan is priced out - combine that with fewer exclusive releases due to the explosion of third party sales over the course of the last two years leading to 85% of sales for third parties on the Switch. The few exclusive that do launch are not going to bring 100K weeks to the system but at least make it reach a respectful on average 11-15K per week in addition to the 17-20K that PS5 baseline that can be maintained to match 2021 numbers.

Still it would be software that will tell the entire story of 2022, as I don't expect for much to change especially with Switch likely selling over 30 million software for the year for the first time in Japan. As even in this scenario I don't think there is enough software to surpass 3 million on the PS4/PS5 unless FFVXI releases in 2022 and even this release might not move that much software in the current environment - likely struggling to surpass 700K if its launched with the current state of PS5 ownership in Japan. Much like Demon Slayer a huge IP that in normal circumstances could have been a 500K+ game on an active Japanese userbase 

Last edited by noshten - on 15 January 2022