Famitsu sales: Week 16, 2022 - (11th Apr - 17th Apr)

[The_Liquid_Laser]

IcaroRibeiro said:

curl-6 said:

The decline in third party sales in Japan is their own fault for continuing to refuse to properly support the system that's dominating Japan.

If you throw everything you have behind a declining platform while allocating only scraps to the market leader, it's hardly surprising if your sales drop.

The last four years now have seen third party sales constantly rise on Switch and constantly fall on Playstation, in spite of third parties strongly favouring the latter.

Except by the games that can't run on Switch (Capcom, Square, etc) it has been a while most of games are released on both Switch and Playstation. There is an almost perfect transition from PS4 third party sales to Switch third party sales on going since Switch found success 

However those sales are still pale compared to that they used to be years ago (3DS/Vita/PS3). The graphs were clear, third party sales are declining while Nintendo first party are growing. PS4 third party sales were also smaller than PS3 third party sales, while Switch is barely earning the third party sales they already owned on 3DS

In the end, the truth is most of people buy primarily Nintendo games on Nintendo platforms, thats why third party split for Nintendo was always smaller than Playstation's (or conversely, you can state first party split was just far smaller on PS4), hence why a market where there is only Switch with relevance is further reducing the importance of third parties.

This is concerning for the future of the market and as Japan is the second most prolific market to create games this is likely to affect the output of games, with Japanese third party having even hard time to keep competitive with technology as they have no money to compete fairly not even with Nintendo games that are arguably smaller budget compared to western games 

Thankfully JP devs are finding a way to sell their games outside Japan, that's can save them from this dark ages of Nintendo domination. 

There is not a decline in software sales compared to Generation 8.  The decline is in comparison to Generation 7.  Generation 7 had one really massive platform (DS) and three others with a respectable install base (PSP, Wii, PS3).  The successor to every single one of these systems experienced decline.  Think out it.

NDS -> 3DS
PSP -> Vita
Wii -> Wii U
PS3 -> PS4

In Japan all 4 of these transitions were a decline.  That is one big reason why third party sales are declining.  However, how did both Nintendo and Sony respond to this situation?  Nintendo rethought how they were doing things and released the Switch, which is clearly more successful than the 3DS in every meaningful way (not to mention the Wii U).  What did Sony do?  They quit Japan.  They ended their handheld line and closed their Japanese studio.  They quit Japan.

The decline in third party sales is because of Sony.  The going got tough and they gave up.  There are no longer 4 viable platforms for third parties in Japan.  There is really only one viable platform now.  The path to a revival of third party sales is pretty simple: third party developers need to put their games on the Switch.  That's all that needs to happen.  Ideally, they would release a Switch version on day 1 for a multiplat game.  Or they could just make their game Switch exclusive.  Nintendo has a viable platform, and the games that release on it certainly sell better than they do on Playstation.  There have already been several weeks where Switch games took 30/30 slots with many of those slots being filled by third party games, and there will be more 30/30 weeks in the future.  Third party developers just need to be more intentional about releasing their games on Switch, and they will do well.

Last edited by The_Liquid_Laser - on 26 April 2022