Bofferbrauer2 said:
Sorry, but if you try to go that route and actually calculate this, then the only result you can get is that the Western market is also crumbing and crashing down, not just the Japanese one. The reason for this is that the markets double consolidated:
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My perception has been completely opposite to what you're suggesting regarding the bolded but I'll get back that...
When I referenced 30 titles selling 500k in 2007 I wasn't discriminating against any publisher, so it doesn't matter who they are or whether they're indie nor not. What I was questioning was the number of games hitting that mark, point blank. And in turn simply saying that a select handful of Nintendo games having higher peaks or being evergreen doesn't necessarily compensate for much fewer games on a per year basis being successful or hitting certain benchmarks (if that is the case).
I also haven't specifically looked at the data across all years (I have last year versus 2007 and its a stark difference) so it was quite literally a suggestion that these are the things to try and gauge when making statements about the state of the Japanese market as opposed to simply focusing on Nintendo's success/Playstations decline. We need a whole picture.
As far as the West is concerned, sales seem to be stable or increasing for most franchises and million sellers are more common then they ever have been, especially for more niche titles. Budgets have also increased so this doesn't mean "success" but lets just looking the sales numbers alone for now. Titles like Persona and Dynasty Warriors are hitting new peaks in the west and there are way fewer steep declines (i.e Dragon Age), whilst the big titles are still carrying their weight... Whereas in Japan it seems most franchises are declining quite notably.
That software situation is the crux of why Japan is highlighted and spoken about in this way. We are after all in the Japan thread and this is the only country thread where we get hard numbers which paint start pictures in how many franchises have fallen compared to their peaks. I'd add the Spain thread was also pretty gloomy when Playstation was supply constraint but it just gets less traction. Back to Japan, When we see a resident evil game hit 10m units WW but see that it's Japanese numbers are the series' lowest that is the fuel to these presumptions that the West is carrying these games but we shouldn't ignore elsewhere in Asia either. As mentioned a lot, In Japan it of course could just be a platform problem and the Swicth 2 might resolve this but this is how things are now.
...Or Japanese tastes have moved away from these IPs and their gameplay experiences, and Playstations reliance on them is in fact the cause for its decline (chicken and the egg sitch). None the less, the picture in the west looks very different IMO where it seems there are more evenly spread success stories. This is my perception through following sales news but some hard data is welcome to challenge any of these notions.
Of course, we only know half the picture in Japan because digital is not really spoken about.
