| Sephiran said: That is Sony's mistake, they believed that they could coast on Japanese third party support and finish off Nintendo. But now Nintendo games are much more popular than the combined strength of Sony games and Sony supporting Japanese third party games in Japan, so instead they are just losing sales by skipping Nintendo while Nintendo breaks software records in Japan instead. And you are in denial if you don't think it would be a huge boon for Sony if they could sell games in Japan. Imagine if Sony could sell 8-10 million copies of one of their games in Japan alone like Nintendo does. |
Sony actually sell a lot of games in Japan, more than the vast majority of third parties. Spiderman 2 for example has sold over 300k physical, probably now 600k total including digital. Ghost of Tsushima sold 1m in Japan despite its physical tracked sales capping at around 500k
https://www.gematsu.com/2023/05/ghost-of-tsushima-sales-top-one-million-in-japan
The reality though is that no developer has been able to touch Nintendo's magic or even come close. It doesn't matter what genre they approach, Nintendo are the exception not the rule when it comes to software sales... If it was a simple equation we would be be seeing lots of developers having 500k selling games on Switch but that is an extremely rare feat, essentially reserved for a few breakout hits like Momotaro, which often cannot be recreated and do not stand out as exceptional gaming experiences. Japan is simply a hard nut to crack. Most games regardless of platform are lucky to reach 100k at retail.
Nintendo has build their brand and identity over decades, releasing a few Astrobot quality Japanese games per year isn't suddenly going to make Sony competitive there. And I think the sensible take away is that the Japanese market shifted away from traditional console interests... if Sony dedicated the last 15 years towards chasing that and trying to be Nintendo they wouldn't be breaking their revenue records as they did last year. Sometimes things just don't align and that just happens to be the case with what Playstation has found global success with versus what the Japanese want.
