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Slownenberg on 28 January 2022
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The_Liquid_Laser said:
Kai_Mao said:

It feels weird knowing that the PS4/5 need some compelling software just to avoid getting shutout in the weekly top 30. I’m not sure if even games like FFXVI will suddenly create significant momentum for the PS5 in Japan, considering that the recent FF games did well the first few weeks or so then drop significantly after (especially compared to JRPGs like Pokemon and Dragon Quest that appear to have pretty good legs for JRPGs).

For one reason or another, the PlayStation is just not able to come up with compelling software that can sell for weeks or months while the Switch has that in spades. CoD, Halo, and Battlefield are supposed to be the biggest shooters in the world, but Splatoon is like a religion in Japan compared to those 3 when they release in Japan. A Monster Hunter or a Ghost of Tsushima appear to be the very few games that Sony can get to gain some appeal in Japan and even then Nintendo will get their own MH game and Ghost is just one game out of how many IPs Sony has that has significant appeal in Japan?

I think the only game that can create significant momentum for them on the software side is Monster Hunter (MHW2 essentially).  Final Fantasy is clearly in decline in Japan.  I doubt FF16 will have the enthusiasm behind it to even sell like FF7 Remake, which itself had disappointing sales.  Dragon Quest 12 is going to sell more on the Switch.  Other Japanese Playstation franchises are not big enough, and there aren't really that many of them left that won't consider porting their game to Switch.  That just leaves MHW2.  I don't doubt that many Japanese gamers will buy a PS5 just for MHW2.  After it releases I expect baseline sales to go up noticeably.  

However, who knows when MHW2 will release? Until then, even the best PS5 game will last 2-3 weeks on the chart, and the PS4 version won't do much better.  I believe there are a lot of Playstation releases coming up during the next month or so, but once this flurry of releases ends, the charts will quickly go back to being 30/30 for Switch.  That is kind of what we should expect from the Famitsu charts going forward.

Agreed. Almost all mega selling games in Japan are exclusive Nintendo games. And now that DQ is also on Nintendo it'll obviously be much bigger there on Nintendo than Playstation. FF is no longer the end all be all of jrpgs like it was back in the 90s and while it is still very popular in Japan it doesn't come close to DQ, MH, or the numerous japan mega selling Nintendo games. MH is the only series that will likely push crazy numbers on Playstation now and Nintendo even has their own series of that now, though World seems to be the more popular of those two MH series.

Playstation sales in Japan continue to slow down a little each gen, but software sales this gen just look abysmal. With a Switch 2 coming out likely mid PS5's lifecycle, I could see that really killing off PS5 sales in Japan because why would you get a PS5 in Japan when you can get the brand new Nintendo hybrid that is going to have almost all the popular games in japan. I think if anything Nintendo is only going to get more dominant in Japan in the future.