Curious to see how 2020 number will look. Pretty certain both should have seen a sizable increase.

[PSP] Monster Hunter Freedom 3 (Capcom) {01.12.2010} (¥5.800)

WEEK -7 {11.10.2010 - 17.10.2010}
PlayStation Portable - 37.553 / 15.187.531 (+9%)

WEEK -6 {18.10.2010 - 24.10.2010}
PlayStation Portable - 28.057 / 15.215.588 (-25%)

WEEK -5 {25.10.2010 - 31.10.2010}
PlayStation Portable - 35.937 / 15.251.525 (+28%)

WEEK -4 {01.11.2010 - 07.11.2010}
PlayStation Portable - 31.865 / 15.283.390 (-11%)

WEEK -3 {08.11.2010 - 14.11.2010}
PlayStation Portable - 36.235 / 15.319.625 (+14%)

WEEK -2 {15.11.2010 - 21.11.2010}
PlayStation Portable - 94.236 / 15.413.861 (+160%) (new limited colors for PSP: Black/Red & White/Blue + return of Blossom Pink)

WEEK -1 {22.11.2010 - 28.11.2010}
PlayStation Portable - 74.439 / 15.488.300 (-21%)

WEEK +1 {29.11.2010 - 05.12.2010}
PlayStation Portable - 327.905 / 15.816.205 (+341%)
Monster Hunter Freedom 3 - 2.146.467 / NEW (... yup, it was sold out too, guess what we can expect for Rise)

WEEK +2 {06.12.2010 - 12.12.2010}
PlayStation Portable - 141.820 / 15.958.025 (-57%)
Monster Hunter Freedom 3 - 514.198 / 2.660.665 (-76%)

WEEK +3 {13.12.2013 - 19.12.2010}
PlayStation Portable - 146.035 / 16.104.060 (+3%)
Monster Hunter Freedom 3 - 434.837 / 3.095.502 (-15%)

WEEK +4 {20.12.2010 - 26.12.2010}
PlayStation Portable - 172.871 / 16.276.931 (+18%)
Monster Hunter Freedom 3 - 385.487 / 3.480.989 (-11%)

WEEK +5 {27.12.2010 - 02.01.2011}
PlayStation Portable - 75.982 / 16.352.913 (-56%)
Monster Hunter Freedom 3 - 317.471 / 3.798.460 (-18%)

WEEK +6 {03.01.2011 - 09.01.2011}
PlayStation Portable - 30.852 / 16.383.765 (-59%)
Monster Hunter Freedom 3 - 155.839 / 3.954.299 (-51%)

WEEK +7 {10.01.2011 - 16.01.2011}
PlayStation Portable - 26.462 / 16.410.227 (-14%)
Monster Hunter Freedom 3 - 80.703 / 4.035.002 (-48%)

Total PSP hardware sales during the 7 weeks before launch (including the release of new colors for PSP)
-> 338.322 (avg 48.332)

Total PSP hardware sales during the 7 weeks since launch (including the full Christmas/New Year shopping season)
-> 921.927 (avg 131.704)

The PSP had its second highest week ever for hardware sales when Monster Hunter Freedom 3 released, only beaten by its own launch week at 339.944 units. That's in spite of Capcom having already released three other Monster Hunter titles on the system, all of which were million-sellers. Although the boost didn't last very long after Christmas, it was a huge performance nonetheless, knowing that the system was entering its 7th year. In the end MHF3 shipped 5.3 million units on PSP, 27% of the handheld's final install base (note: the 4.9m figure reported by Capcom doesn't account for the last budget reprint that sold 400k).

Freedom Unite shipped 4.4 million units on PSP (the 3.8m figure reported by Capcom doesn't account for the last two budget reprints that sold 600k), but it didn't exactly provide the same type of bump for hardware sales as the other big Monster Hunter titles did since the series' popularity was still building up, it was more of a very long term boost rather than a huge spike.

Monster Hunter Rise is launching on March 26 at ¥7.264, including digital sales I'm expecting a bigger first week than Pokémon Sword/Shield (2m) but lower than Animal Crossing: New Horizons (apparently the biggest launch ever at over 2.6m). The ceiling for its lifetime sales will depend if the G ver. releases as a DLC like Iceborne did or goes back to the MH4U/MHGU model, but at least for now I can't see it going lower than MH4 (4.1m). Switch hardware sales before launch will likely be higher than any system listed above thanks to the releases of Bowser's Fury, Story of Seasons, Bravely Default II and the continued momentum from the evergreens, notably Animal Crossing and Ring Fit. Big things to look forward to, another 300k week for Switch is a real possibility.

Facepalm

Ye really need to read the labels, dude... Well, hopefully I'll do next time!

PS4/PS5 Top 15 Oct - Jan

1. [PS4] Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War (Sony) - 162.275
2. [PS4] Cyberpunk 2077 (Spike Chunsoft)-  112.408
3. [PS4] Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne HD Remaster (Atlus) - 55.501
4. [PS4] Assassin's Creed: Valhalla (Ubisoft) - 55.445
5. [PS4] FIFA 21 (Electronic Arts) - 51.884 
6. [PS4] Watch Dogs: Legion (Ubisoft) - 49.685
7. [PS4] Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin (Marvelous) - 48.019
8. [PS4] Atelier Ryza 2 (Koei Tecmo)  - 43.987
9. [PS4] Dragon Quest XI S(Square Enix) - 35.855
10. [PS4] Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales (Sony) - 34.811
11. [PS5] Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales (Sony) - 24.805
12. [PS4] Densha de Go!! Hashirou Yamanotesen (Square Enix)  - 21.592
13. [PS5] Demon's Souls (Sony) - 21.489
14. [PS4] Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory (Square Enix) - 18.120 
15. [PS4] GreedFall (Game Source) - 13.292

PS4 - 13

PS5 - 2

TOTAL: 749.168

Call of Duty

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 - 511.722
• Call of Duty: Black Ops III - 403.054
• Call of Duty: WWII - 387.498
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - 243.901
• Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare - 215.127
• Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War - 162.275
• Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare - 102.668

Call of Duty is the western IP with the most decline in Japan in the past two years, Black Ops 4 released during the PS4's peak, while next year I don't think the franchise will be able to sell over 100K copies on the PS5. 

Cyberpunk 2077 vs Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 195.894
• Cyberpunk 2077 - 112.408

Spike Chunsoft is probably pretty unhappy about how the PS4 launch of Cyberpunk 2077 went, they shipped around 150K copies which are likely not going to sell-out until the game is fixed, I guess that's the risk with banking on Western Third parties for growth. The Witcher 3 also had bugs at launch, but the game was playable on the PS4 and had very good legs, with Spike making a couple of additional shipments and achieving very good sales digitally. 

Assassin Creeds

• Assassin's Creed: Origins - 98.951
• Assassin's Creed: Odyssey - 87.523
• Assassin's Creed: Valhalla  - 55.445
• Assassin's Creed: Syndicate - 55.183
• Assassin's Creed: Unity - 51.109

FIFAs

• FIFA 18 - 125.712
• FIFA 19 - 105.047
  
• FIFA 17 - 86.462
• FIFA 20 - 74.142
• FIFA 14 - 70.622
• FIFA 21 - 51.884 

Watch Dogs

• Watch Dogs 2 - 109.712
• Watch Dogs - 95.490
• Watch Dogs: Legion - 49.685

EA & Ubisoft also won't be getting that many sales in Japan in the future as Assassin's Creed, Watch Dogs, FIFA will struggle to sell beyond 50K in the coming year or even years. 

Overall Western 3rd Parties will be worst impacted in 2021 by the struggle of the PS5 to gain a foothold. Take Two, EA, Ubisoft's biggest games will struggle to surpass 100K sales in Japan because they are all pretty much exclusive to the Sony ecosystem. Sales within the PlayStation Ecosystem are very likely to be under 3 million physical next year, which will be a 58% decline in two years. The people playing AAA games in Japan will become a niche, and Japanese audience will become more familiar with smaller publishers and indies from the West than the biggest ones that outside of Ubisoft don't seem to have a strategy that included the Switch up until this year. 

I do think we would see more games from EA, Take Two and Ubisoft on the Switch in 2021, as these are businesses which are constantly chasing profits so they can no longer not have Nintendo as part of their road-map at this point. As their shareholders demand profit, we can expect more acquisitions of studios that have found success on the Switch. 

During 2020 on Switch Nintendo's first-party annual software sales had a sizeable increase however third-party annual software sales should have been only slightly up compared to 2019.

Konami and Koei Tecmo are up YoY but Bandai Namco, Square Enix, Capcom are down.

Mojang/Microsoft (Minecraft) held steadily.

Atlus had a noticeably increase (just over 100K) but only because they started from 0 (that is more or less what Atlus sold on Switch in 2019)

Switch is a huge success in spite japanese publishers' crappy efforts.

Missed opportunities by third parties.

By 2018 it should have been known switch would have been a success worldwide the the dominant leader in Japan and that should have given them enough time to release big games in 2020.

I know Capcom is upping its support with big games but lets see what the rest of the Japanese third parties do.

3rd Parties 2020 Top 30:

1. 1. NSW: Momotaro Dentetsu (Konami) - 1.233.023
   2. PS4: Final Fantasy VII Remake (Square Enix) - 932.821
   3. NSW: Minecraft (Microsoft) - 556.982
   4. NSW: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (Koei Tecmo) - 304.963
   5. PS4: Resident Evil 3 (Capcom) - 258.676
   6. NSW: eBaseball Powerful Pro Baseball 2020 (Konami) - 248.024
   7. PS4: Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon (Sega) - 243.769
   8. NSW: Fishing Spirits (Bandai Namco) - 207.472
   9. PS4: eBaseball Powerful Pro Baseball 2020 (Konami) - 180.243
   10. NSW: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games: Tokyo 2020 (Sega) - 167.411
   11. PS4: Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs. MaxiBoost On (Bandai Namco) - 161.014
   12. PS4: Nioh 2 (Koei Tecmo) - 156.772
   13. PS4: Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers (Atlus) - 149.898
   14. PS4: Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot (Bandai Namco) - 149.654
   15. NSW: Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum 'n' Fun! (Bandai Namco) - 133.978
   16. PS4: Trials of Mana (Square Enix) - 133.593
   17. PS4: One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 (Bandai Namco) - 131.315
   18. NSW: One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 (Bandai Namco) - 117.954
   19. PS4: Cyberpunk 2077 (Spike Chunsoft) - 112.408
   20. PS4: Granblue Fantasy Versus (Cygames) - 111.094
   21. NSW: Derby Stallion (Game Addict) - 108.570
   22. NSW: Dragon Quest XI S (Square Enix) - 101.956
   23. NSW: Trials of Mana (Square Enix) - 100.451
   24. PS4: The Legend of Heroes: Hajimari no Kiseki (Nihon Falcom) - 96.140
   25. NSW: Human: Fall Flat (Teyon Japan) - 87.440
   26. PS4: Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris (Bandai) - 85.010
   27. NSW: Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin (Marvelous) - 84.814
   28. NSW: Hatsune Miku: Project Diva MegaMix (Sega) - 78.558
   29. NSW: Minecraft Dungeons: Hero Edition (Microsoft) - 65.831
   30. NSW: Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers (Atlus) - 65.653 

PS4 - 14

NSW - 16

PS4 TOTAL: 2.902.407

NSW TOTAL: 3.663.080

Top 3rd Party Publishers

1. Konami - 1.392.474
2. Square Enix - 1.389.263
3. Bandai Namco - 964.801
4. Microsoft - 574.354
5. Sega - 460.877
6. Koei Tecmo - 435.384
7. Capcom - 321.998
8. Atlus - 330.357
9. Spike Chunsoft - 112.408
10. Cygames - 111.094

3rd Parties & Sony 2020 Top 14:

1. NSW: Momotaro Dentetsu (Konami) - 277.514
2. NSW: Minecraft (Microsoft) - 57.463
3. NSW: Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin (Marvelous) - 25.067
4. NSW: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (Koei Tecmo) - 21.491
5. NSW: Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 (Sega) - 20.686
6. NSW: Fitness Boxing 2 (Imagineer) - 17.085
7. NSW: Fishing Spirits (Bandai Namco) - 14.939
8. NSW: Human: Fall Flat (Teyon Japan) - 14.260
9. NSW: Derby Stallion (Game Addict) - 13.170
10. NSW: Dragon Quest: XIS (Square Enix) - 13.132
11. NSW: Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythmic Adventure Pack (Bandai Namco) - 12.327
12. PS4: Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War (Sony) - 11.311
13. NSW: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Sega) - 7.696
14. NSW: Family Trainer (Bandai Namco Games) - 4.860

TOTAL: 511.001

Next 40 days

• Momotaro will continue to be the Top Selling 3rd Party game in 2021, until Monster Hunter Rise launches 
• Marvelous are in the best position outside of Konami, in the next 40 days. Sakuna continues to sell well and they will be launching Olive Town which should do very well. I won't be surprised if it's their best selling game of ALL TIME before the end of the quarter(Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness - 304K).
  They also have Rune Factory 5 in May so their YoY growth will be huge in the coming quarters. 
• Disgaea 6 by Nippon Ichi is the next 3rd Party game to drop, we shall see how it performs on the PS4/Switch, so far there doesn't appear too be major hype surrounding it. Disgaea 5 debuted with 22.872 on the PS4, so if it manages 50K on it's debut it can be seen as a success. Disgaea: Hour of Darkness is the best selling game all the way back in the PS2 era with 152.675, if Swich+PS4 version manage this amount Nippon Ichi will probably be very happy with the result especially as this franchise has far more sales overseas. A lot will depend on reception WoM and Nippon Ichi/Retailer expectations in Japan. 
• From Bandai Namco, there is actually a game launching Little Nightmares 2 with the low price, a lot will depend on how much is shipped and whether the game is well received. 
• Spike Chunsoft is unlikely to ship more than 25K copies for the launch of Re:ZERO - Starting Life in Another World, overall I can see the anime impacting this one positively, very interested in how this game does on the Switch. 
• For Square, Bravely Default 2 & the Switch version of Densha de Go!! are the major games this quarter, if they managed 500K combined while DQXIS continues to sell at a steady pace, they should be happy with their result. Densha de Go!! could have been a good game for them to launch in the holidays on the Switch, but they missed the train. 

Hopefully by now it's obvious enough to Japanese third parties how much they're missing by not seriously supporting the Switch.

Games like Momotaro and soon Monster Hunter Rise will bring in millions of sales, while the vast majority of third party content on the Famitsu top 30 are Switch games.

Honestly I feel that 3rd parties have supported the Switch pretty well by now.

Koei Tecmo has supported since day 1.

SE had Octopath Traveler exclusive to Switch. DQXI was announced for the Switch before the Switch was even announced.

Konami joined the fray in 2020 with Momotaro.

Namco Bandai has supported the Switch quite well consistently.

Only notable exception was Capcom, and now in 2021 they will have the biggest game.

I forgot how well the Wii U did in japan, at least for the first 3 years.

and then the support pretty much dried up after splatoon/smash 4