Japan Consoles Showdown 2025: Nov 30th

[Shtinamin_]

Going over the two weeks of 2025 here is what we are dealing with.

Announcement of Switch 2 with a Direct on April 2nd

Sony dropped production on a plethora of software and will stop producing PS4 software

Microsoft says they will be bringing their IP’s over to the competitor’s consoles Switch, Switch 2 and PS5.

Switch is outpacing 2024 by ~16.4k. I expect that Switch will continue to sell close to 2024 numbers up until the Switch 2 is released (rumored by June). So for simplicity by June 30, 2025 Switch will be at 1.32M. Once the Switch 2 is released we should expect the rest of the year to have around a 50% drop in hardware sales. Meaning Switch by Dec 31, 2025 will reach 2.18M.

Switch 2 is announced to have a brand new Mario Kart sometime in its lifecycle. Mario Kart is one of the highest selling Nintendo Switch games in Japan. Switch 2 is also rumored to launch in June. Bloomberg reports that Nintendo wants to sell 20M Switch 2 hardware units in 2025. We should expect Japan to make up at a minimum of 1/3 this amount. Switch 2 by Dec 31, 2025 will sell 6.67M units. This feels really high.

PS5 is behind 2024 by ~19.2k. Considering that the first week of January is usually one of the highest selling weeks (with exceptions of huge AAA game releases) we should expect PS5 to continue to sell at a -24.67% YoY decline until June 30, 2025 reaching 596k. 

They declared that no existing major franchises will get a release before March 31, 2025 and will announce existing major franchises in the State of Play in February. We should expect a reasonable amount of PS5 exclusives in 2025 and with the release of GTA VI nearing the end of 2025 PS5 will make a considerable jump in hardware sales during the second half of the year. By December 31, 2025 PS5 will reach 2.11M.

Xbox Series is ahead of 2024 by 160 units. I expect Xbox Series to be selling near but below what they sold in 2024 as they bring their IPs over to PS5 and Switch 2. By June 30, 2025, Xbox Series will reach 57k. By Dec 31, 2025 Xbox Series will reach 110k.