The only way for this situation to turn around would be for Sony and Nintendo to join forces IMO. It's gotten *that* bad in Japan.

Mobile is eating both of their lunches.

It kinda makes sense for hardware to be up since we had the PS4 launch for the first half of 2014 whereas 2013 didn't have anything new (hardware wise) launching. 

Very interesting data, thx.

So 2013 is a 13-year-low for consoles... and 2014 is going to be a lot worse. That certainly isn't pretty. Handheld site is better but still on the wane with a dreadful 2014 ahead.

Why? Did the Japanese lose interest in gaming that fast?

Wow, so 2007 was the peak year for 7th gen home consoles. I wonder if that means 2014 will be the peak year for 8th gen home consoles. Though maybe with PS4 only releasing in 2014 the peak year might be pushed out to 2015.

Wii faded extremely fast in Japan. While it was a sales phenomenon for 4 full years globally it was only really a phenomenon in 2007 in Japan. in 2008 it looks like it sold less than PS2's top 3 years, and perhaps its top 4 years. And after 2008 Wii only sold at PS2's 2005 level, which was its last year with no 7th gen competition.

They are playing on the new superior master race:

There's something I've wondered about for a while.  I've been working on my own charts, and I've found that, at least when it comes to older consoles, shipment numbers are much easier to come across than actual sales numbers.  I'm at the point where I'm almost ready to give up on trying to figure out global sales and just settle for charting shipments.

But it did get me thinking.  Couldn't the shipment numbers themselves be used to estimate the likely number of sales?  I realize it's not an exact science and there would be a margin of error, but don't the shipment figures tell us something about sales?  I mean, what kind of sales threshold do manufacturers wait for before shipping more units?  We must have a rough idea.

I realize it would be a different number depending on how fast they're selling, but there must be a minimum number of units they aim to have on the shelves at all times.  This may not give us accurate week-to-week sales figures, but at the very least, couldn't shipment data (both the timing and the size) be used to estimate likely sales figures over the long term?

wii u is up from last year, isnt it?
also, ps4 came.

i think 2014 can be bigger than 2013 for home consoles.
but handhelds seems to drop.

dunno why people think 2014 is gonna be even worse than 2013 when the PS4 came out in Japan this year. I mean home console sales are already over half of what they were last year and thats in the half of the year that always does worse.

Japan as a whole is dying of.

Pretty sure Famitsu's been tracking sales since the 80s. I remember searching through old Google Forums posts from old-ass internet postings in the 80s, and in a video game group sure enough there was a guy relaying video game sales from like 1988 or something.