Famitsu Sales: Week 49, 2025 (Dec 1 - Dec 7)

[PAOerfulone]

IcaroRibeiro said:

The decline of third party game sales in Japan is corresponding to a lack of offering to them in handheld form on Sony systems. Some IPs will recover naturally when offered in portable mode

Wii, Wii U, PS4 and PS3 had tons of exclusives and neither sold even 15 million. Playing portable is a huge deal for japanese people, Sony having a portable option is simply a must for japanese market, even if it only to play PS5/PS6 games 

The decline of third-party game sales is because they choose to primarily, or even exclusively, develop more Western-focused IPs, or take their IPs in a more Western direction, for international PlayStation (and PC) audiences on top of withholding or not releasing them on Switch. Because Japanese developers have been trying to follow the Western mentality of "More, More, MORE graphics" with diminishing returns. Which may work in the Western markets, but the Japanese market don't care about specs and graphics nearly as much as the Western ones do.

Pre-Switch 2, this made sense when it came to making a game primarily for PS5 and PC - Because those games would have a tough time running on PS4, so Switch 1 was out of the question despite that system being the market leader because there was no way it was going to work without MAJOR drawbacks.

And even with Switch 2 out, that can still be the case for a game that REALLY pushes and takes advantage of the PS5 and, eventually, the PS6's power. 

That reason goes right out the window if a PlayStation handheld is made and if they want it to play PS5 and PS6 games.

Because in order for those PS5 and even PS6 games to run well and be playable on a PS handheld, they'd have to scale them back to the point where it can also run on Switch 2 with little effort. If that happens, then there really is NO reason at that point to NOT put their games on Switch 2 unless Sony money-hats the hell out of those games.

So, if all those third-party games are coming out on Switch 2 as well - Then what reason is there for Japanese players to get a PlayStation anymore?

Because they're not buying it for God of War, Last of Us, Death Stranding, Spider-Man/Wolverine, or Horizon (Sony 1st party IPs). They're buying it for Monster Hunter, Dragon Quest, Persona, Final Fantasy, and Yakuza (3rd party IPs - Ones that are starting to appear more frequently on Nintendo.)

So we're right back to square one - The crux of the problem. Sony's lack of their own games to entice Japanese players.

Last edited by PAOerfulone - 2 days ago