Japan Consoles Showdown 2025: Nov 30th

[Shtinamin_]

Norion said:

Shtinamin_ said:

3DS in 2019 had 26% decline.

PS2 in both 2008 & 2009 had 21% declines.

PS3 in 2015 had a 25% decline.

After their 50-70% decline in the first year, in their second year there is a stabilization in sales. Ive found it helps to look at the full data trend, though I’m not perfect at doing it either, no worries there.

It is still a yearly decline YoY overall, but is not steep. As stated earlier, the DS decline is a hard floor. And the 3DS is a hard ceiling. A sub-40% decline can be a reality, and I believe is the possibility with the Switch in 2026 in Japan.
Nintendo has stated that the Switch’s lifecycle is still kicking ending in 2027, shelfcycle will go on past 2028. Switch and Switch 2 are in a market state of coexistence.

Switch 2 has constrained sign-ups, it is consistent and healthy. Though it can lead many to get the cheaper and more immediate option, a Switch. When I speak of a stabilization year, this means that there will still be a YoY decline, it will not be fall but a shallower decline. Stabilization does not mean an overall growth.

Considering the issue you present around software not boosting console sales in a major way or making a difference.  
3DS:
-Pokémon US/UM boosting hardware sales in Japan by near 4x the pre-release week data.  
-Detective Pikachu & WarioWare boosted near +30-50%
Wii: (even though the listed games are pre-WiiU, the Wii was abandoned once WiiU released so pre-WiiU seems appropriate)   
-Dragon Quest X, Just Dance 2, Taiko no Tatsujin Wii: Chou Goukaban had boosted near 2x   
-Rhythm Heaven Fever boosted by 3x.
-PokéPark 2 had near 70-80% increase boost 
DS:   
-Pokémon Black & White (not as relevant)   
-Pokémon Black 2 & White 2 increased hardware by 900%

We’ll also take a look at more recent Rhythm Heaven and Tomadachi. Rhythm Heaven Gold during a mid/late life cycle of Wii boosted hardware by 118%. Tomadachi Life during a mature era of 3DS boosted hardware by 140%.

While a weekly hardware uplift is modest in available data (for smaller less prominent IP’s), the fact that a game could launch and register tens of thousands of hardware sales at their consoles life stage supports the idea of residual demand and hardware elasticity among particular demographics. Like the ones I explained earlier. Late-cycle exclusives aimed a different demographics can still and have created localized boosts (Japan is not the exception).

The coexistence market does not present the normal situation we have seen in past Nintendo consoles. With it, exclusive or Japan-targeted software can sustain demand longer than the usual drop. Japan handhelds (as Switch is and can be used as such) are supported in the market for longer past their global declines.

So yes, a 35% decline YoY (1.0M) for Switch in Japan in 2026 is a viable, expectation. It’ll be a stabilization year with minor intra-year rebounds like I listed in Jul-Sept. This isn’t wishful thinking but based on historical data/trends to represent what a coexistence market looks like. You have your interpretation, I present mine. We each present evidences, weighing in on their strengths and weaknesses.

I’ll be happy to be proven wrong if that’s how it turns out to be, hopefully we both can be open to what turns out. That kind of openness demonstrates growth.

The 3DS went from a bit over 540k in 2018 to under 200k in 2019 and the PS3 430k in 2014 to under 190k in 2015 so that's completely wrong. I don't know what source you're using but it's not accurate at all so just use the data on here instead. The yearly charts index under charts has data up to the end of 2018 and hardware by date under tools has stuff after that so those pages will help you make better informed posts.

For the software part your examples don't help your case at all. US/UM boosted sales somewhat for a bit but I made a point to reference non-exclusive software and that was a 3DS only game and the Switch 1 isn't getting any more notable exclusive games thanks to backwards compatibility. For the rest of the 3DS ones going from 8-9k to 11-12k for one week doesn't mean anything and this is especially the case for the DS example since Black/White 2 making it go from 950 one week to 1600 the next week is meaningless and not even remotely as high as a 900% increase so I dunno where you got that from.

You keep making posts that are misinformed so again you should really take the time to look at the data on here since it'll help you make posts with much better analysis.

Norion I apologize for the erroneous software selling hardware numbers. After review I think I know what I ended up doing. It was late and it looks like I ended up using just software sales.

And after seeing the new forecast I’ll have to adjust the living prediction.

Sorry for the delay, just had a lot happen and wanted to get focused.

Going over the other info, 3DS from Apr 1 2016-Mar 31 2017 in Japan sold 2,016,095 units.

Apr 1 2017-Mar 31 2018 (1st year of Switch 1) in Japan sold 1,428,263 units. -29% YoY

Apr 1 2018-Mar 31 2019 (2nd year of Switch 1) in Japan sold 442,170 units. -69% YoY

Apr 1 2019-Mar 31 2020 (3rd year of Switch 1) in Japan sold 116,147 units. -73.73% YoY

So I was incorrect about the year (I earlier spoke on 2019 as a 29% decline and I will chalk that up to lack of sleep. Apr 2017-Mar 2018 was -29%, most likely the ~25% I spoke of that I placed as the second year of Switch, it was the 1st year.)

I spoke of the following games:

Pokémon US/UM, Detective Pikachu, WarioWare Gold, Dragon Quest X, Just Dance Wii 2, Taiko no Tatsujin Wii: Chou Goukaban, Rhythm Heaven Fever, PokéPark 2, Pokémon Black & White and B2/W2. Let’s get the numbers right, cause I certainly didn’t the first time.

Pokémon US/UM saw a 2.1x boost on launch week going from 21,174 to 44,882. And held 40.8% boost for the month from 99,140 (5 week Oct) to 139,605 (4 week Nov) and a 61.8% boost for the Dec 225,813 (4 week Dec). You can chalk this “boost” to the holiday sales so I’ll compare it to the year prior, S/M boosted launch week by 3.5x and had a 175% monthly boost compared to (4 week Oct) 113,364 to 312,392 (5 week Nov) and a 66.4% boost the next month 519,822 (4 week Dec). The Dec is mostly holiday boosting, but demonstrates new games sell old consoles.

Detective Pikachu did not boost on its launch but did boost once it released to America, the Japan sale went from 23,515 to 27,899 and held there for another week (27,856). An 18.6% or 1.2x.

WarioWare Gold did boost on launch week, 1.4x, 8,659 to 12,174 and hold +10k for two more weeks.

Dragon Quest X gave a big boost, 4x, 10,641 to 42,558. And kept the Wii selling above 15k for two more weeks.

Just Dance Wii 2 slightly boosted, 1.2x, 8,939 to 10,641. And the week following by was the release of Dragon Quest X.

Taiko no Tatsujin Wii: Chou Goukaban had a slight boost, 1.3x, 3,799 to 5,005.

Rhythm Heaven Fever saw a slight boost, 1.2x, from 14,336 to 17,078 (this was a year before WiiU) and saw hardware sales stay above/near 17k for two more weeks.

PokéPark 2 saw a slight boost as well, 1.18x, from 10,859 to 12,845.

Pokémon Black & White (not as relevant)

Pokémon Black 2 & White 2 saw a slight boost on the launch week, 1.5x (51%), from 1,058 to 1,600. And keeps hardware above 1.1k for two more weeks. (I think I was using software when mentioning 900%, I blame that on the late night and lack of sleep)

As of now Switch is at 732,962 units sold from Apr-Nov 2025. In Japan this is a -63.9% decline in comparison of the same time frame but the year prior. If this % continues up to Mar 31, 2026 we should expect Nintendo to only sell/ship (as these are essentially the same on their reports) 1,092,279 units.

This year 2025 we expect ~1.55M in hardware sales from the Showdown page. If this estimation is correct then it’ll be -47.34% from the year prior (2.94M).

Let us take the middle ground of the 47.34 and the 63.9, putting us in a neutral -55.62% decline for the FY. Which is natural for a console to sell in the first year of its successor. Running that we can expect Nintendo to ship/sell a total of 1,342,800 (1.34M) in Japan from Apr 2025-Mar 2026.

Japan is at 0.73M as of Nov 30. Meaning to reach the expected 1.34M there must be 0.61M hardware units sold from Dec 2025-Mar 31 2026.

Oct has sold 98,744.

Nov has near 111,760.

Dec is estimated to be at worst 1.7x (70% increase MoM) ~190k, and at expected 1.9x (90% increase MoM) ~212k and at best 2.0-2.1x (100-110%) 223-235k

I’ll stick with the expected case 90% at 212k

Historically we see a ~60% drop from Dec to Jan, 84.7k
And Mar is usually higher in sales than Jan

>84.7k

Hmm the 1.34M estimation will be very difficult. And that’s alright. We are trying to make predictions.

Let’s see if we can get a better estimation. Seems we won’t have a -55.62% decline. It’ll be closer to the decline of the raw numbers.

Metroid Prime 4, honestly I don’t know, but it should be a nice boost.

Pokémon Champions will bring a boost similar to Pokémon Stadium which provided a 100-120% boost of hardware for 1-2 weeks.

Tomadachi and Rhythm Heaven for 2026 are strong family and younger demographic pulls and the Switch is a budget option for young families.
“1 in 3 people” in Japan own a Switch 1. So we are in an era of saturation, the highest for any gaming hardware in Japan. Yet it still continues to sell, surpassing expectations of “failure”.

If we are to expect a similar path of most Nintendo post successor hardware. We should expect the Switch to sell around 1/3 of what the Switch 2 sells in Japan during December.

If we are looking at just the raw numbers the -63.9% decline, Nintendo only needs to sell 359k units between Dec-Mar 31, 2026 to reach the raw estimate of 1.09M. That is very easy.

Dec estimated to be at 212k. Meaning Jan-Mar need to sell 147k. Jan and Mar do that alone and surpass it.

We are most likely looking at Japan selling 1.18M. A -61% decline.

Worldwide Nintendo lowered their forecast to 4.0M

Japan will be selling an approximation of 1.18M, leaving 2.82M on the table.

So far worldwide (including Japan) as sold according to Oct estimations 2.16M leaving 1.83M on the table from Nov-Mar.

Adding in Nov estimates of Japan we have 2.28M leaving 1.72M from Nov(excluding Japan)-Mar. I’m at least predicting Japan to sell 1.18M for the FY thus from Dec-Mar it’ll sell 0.45M

Japan sells around 28% of the market worldwide.

Worldwide excluding Japan must sell 1.27M from Nov-Dec.

This is very doable, and very achievable.

I am still under the idea that Jan 2026-Dec 2026 will sell 1.0M Switch 1 units. As Jan-Mar will sell around a guestimated 230k. Along with the Mario Galaxy Movie releasing. It will touch maybe near 8k at its lowest weekly, and hover on average (excluding holidays) near 15k. 

It’ll be interested to see what 2026 brings