Famitsu Switch 3rd Parties 2017-2020 Top 20:

1. Minecraft (Microsoft) - 1.702.921
2. Momotaro Dentetsu (Konami) - 1.233.023
3. Dragon Quest XI S (Square Enix) - 592.940
4. Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum 'n' Fun! (Bandai Namco) - 554.560
5. Fishing Spirits (Bandai Namco) - 544.467
6. Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate (Capcom) - 379.611
7. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 (Sega) - 362.539
8. Yo-kai Watch 4 (Level 5) - 358.356
9. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (Koei Tecmo) - 304.963
10. Dragon Quest Builders 2 (Square Enix) - 295.237
11. Super Bomberman R (Konami) - 275.029
12. eBaseball Powerful Pro Baseball 2020 (Konami) - 269.648
13. Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball (Konami) - 225.614
14. Octopath Traveler (Square Enix) - 193.780
15. Disney Tsum Tsum Festival (Bandai Namco) - 185.990
16. Dragon Ball: Xenoverse 2 (Bandai Namco) - 181.090
17. Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town (Marvelous) - 164.944
18. Puyo Puyo Tetris S (Sega) - 154.573
19. Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission (Bandai Namco) - 145.720
20. Fitness Boxing (Imagineer) - 141.889

TOTAL: 8.266.894

Famitsu Switch 3rd Parties 2021 Top 20:

1. Monster Hunter Rise (Capcom) - 2.298.444 
2. Momotaro Dentetsu (Konami) - 1.057.026
3. Minecraft (Microsoft) - 384.074
4. Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town (Marvelous) – 281.140
5. Monster Hunter Stories 2 (Capcom) - 195.328 
6. Baseball Spirits 2021 (Konami) - 150.542 
7. Crayon Shin-Chan (Neos) - 142.476 
8. Bravely Default II (Square Enix) – 136.091
9. Rune Factory 5 (Marvelous) - 127.968
10. Fitness Boxing 2 (Imagineer) - 91.326
11. Dragon Quest XI S (Square Enix) - 84.512
12. Human Fall Flat (Teyon Japan) - 76.808
13. Little Nightmares II (Bandai Namco) - 72.796
14. Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin (Marvelous) - 65.620
15. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (Koei Tecmo) - 62.119
16. Samurai Warriors 5 (Koei Tecmo) - 61.350
17. Fishing Spirits (Bandai Namco) - 44.958
18. Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum 'n' Fun! (Bandai Namco) - 42.507
19. Minecraft Dungeons (Microsoft) - 38.147
20. Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 (Sega) - 36.105

TOTAL: 5.449.337

The only thing left until September is Yu-Gi-Oh launching, it's difficult to say how the game will do after strong initial pre-orders. In terms of initial shipment I believe it will be around 400K, but sell-through will be more important. By the end of August the 2021 total is likely to surpass 6 million, meaning that the actual result for the year is likely to be over 9 million. 

MH Rise (C) >2.75M

Momotaro (K) >1.6M

Yu-Gi-Oh (K) >700K

Minecraft (Mi) >650K

Olive Town(Ma), SMT V(At),Power Prokun Pocket R(K), Shin-Chan(N) >400K

MH Stories 2(C) >350K

Baseball Spirits(K) >300K

DQXI S(SE), Fitness Boxing 2(I), Bravely Default 2(SE), Rune Factory 5(Ma), Human Fall Flat(T), Sakuna(Ma) >200K

Little Nightmares 2(BN), Age of Calamity(KT), Kakarot(BN), SRW 30(BN), SM5(KT), DW9E(KT) >100K

I can totally see a bunch of third parties having record breaking years in Japan due to this huge explosion in support we are seeing on the Switch. Particularly Capcom, Konami, Marvelous, Neos, Imagineer, Teyon & possibly Atlus. 

It's also visible for smaller developers, Nippon Ichi who are absent on this list just saw sales surge for Q1, they make most of their money on the eShop by localizing and porting other people's games to the Switch, the impacts of this year on the Japanese business will be huge and 2022 will be even better for them as they've mostly started to align their strategies to the Switch. 

This will be another year of growth for Japanese video game market and I anticipate 2022 to be the Switch peak, so we are looking at a very healthy market outside of the fact that it's now entirely dominated by one device. As I've said many times the impacts of this will be more and more profound with ever month that passes. From Dynasty Warriors returning to a Nintendo for the first time in over 7 years; Baseball Spirits entirely forgoing a PS version, for many AA franchise a return to Nintendo ecosystem or exclusivity. As financially it makes more sense to get featured on a direct than producing a PS5 version when even Resident Evil: Village is struggling to surpass 100K sales on the PS5

Oh I think everyone knows the PS5 will sell worse than the PS4 in Japan. I think the PS5 will do 6 million lifetime in Japan. Bold I know, but I think that's what it's going to do.

Eh, I dunno; PS as a brand has been in decline in Japan for a long time now, but PS5 is tracking ahead of PS4 so far isn't it? I know that's not a very high bar, but still.

Yeah, but software sales are abysmal, below Xbox 360 performance. Scalpers send games for the Asia market it's a possibility. 

At the moment this is what the Top 30 looks like on the PS4/PS5 for the year,

I've included Demon's Souls & Miles Morales at 25K to 30K which seems like realistic based on the last time Demon's Souls tracked on Famitsu:

Best Selling PS4/PS5 Games 2021:

1. [PS4] Resident Evil Village (Capcom) - 191.983
2. [PS4] NieR Replicant (Square Enix) - 158.265
3. [PS4] Samurai Warriors 5 (Koei Tecmo) - 72.727
4. [PS5] Resident Evil Village (Capcom) - 53.953
5. [PS4] Scarlet Nexus(Bandai Namco) - 31.665
6. [PS4] Biomutant (THQ Nordic) - 30.292
7. [PS5] Demon's Souls (Sony) - 25.000+
8. [PS5] Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales (Sony) - 25.000+
9. [PS4] Little Nightmares II (Bandai Namco) - 24.968
10. [PS4] Judgment [New Price Edition] (Sega) - 24.271
11. [PS5] Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade (Square Enix) - 23.491
12. [PS4] Disgaea 6 (Nippon Ichi) - 18.289
13. [PS5] Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (Sony) - 17.850
14. [PS4] Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War (Sony) - 16.454
15. [PS4] Dragon Quest XI S (Square Enix) - 16.352
16. [PS4] Sakuna: of Rice and Ruin (Marvelous) - 16.235
17. [PS5] Judgment (Sega) - 14.749 
18. [PS4] Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection (Koei Tecmo) - 14.483
19. [PS4] NieR: Automata - YoRHa Edition (Square Enix) - 13.712
20. [PS4] Guilty Gear: Strive (Arc System) - 13.574
21. [PS4] Winning Post 9 2021 (Koei Tecmo) - 13.221
22. [PS5] Scarlet Nexus (Bandai Namco) - 12.785
23. [PS4] The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails (Nihon Falcom) - 11.230
24. [PS4] The Quintessential Quintuplets Double Integral (Mages.) - 10.378
25. [PS4] Utawarerumono: Zan 2 (Aqua Plus) - 10.241
26. [PS4] Nioh 2: The Complete Edition (Koei Tecmo) - 9.969
27. [PS4] Neo: The World Ends with You (Square Enix) - 9.248
28. [PS5] Returnal (Sony) - 9.148
29. [PS4] The Caligula Effect 2 (FuRyu) - 8.454
30. [PS4] Outriders (Square Enix) - 7.966

PS4 - 22

PS5 - 8

TOTAL: 905.953

PS4 TOTAL: 723.977 (80%)

PS5 TOTAL: 181.976 (20%)

As we can see the physical sales are dire, even if another 200+ games sold 3K on average, that takes the total of the two systems to 1.5 million with most of the year gone.

The situation between the PS4 launch starkly different, PS4 Software managed 1.958.725 sales in 2014 it's launch year, while PSV/PS3 combined sold an additional 9.240.621 units. For 2015 PS4 reached 3.945.641, while PSV/PS3 managed 6.436.535. 

In 2020 we saw PS5 manage a measly 109.374 units, while the PS4 ended up with 7.839.893 sales. 

Best case scenario for this year is that the PS5 ends up surpassing 500K physical software sold, while the PS4 surpasses 3 million units, that would be more than 50% drop in physical sales YoY. The big games for the rest of the year are basically Tales of Arise, Lost Judgement and Demon Slayer, at best these 3 games might add 500K to the annual total of the PS4/PS5 in the current climate. There are a few Western AAA games that will see a huge drop compared to prior entries because of how bad the situation for the PS4/PS5 has gotten in Japan. 

Also I don't think next year will be much better for the PS4/PS5, as the growth of software on PS5 is unlikely to offset the decline of the PS4. 

End of day, hardware performance is likely just masking the reality of PS5 ownership in Japan, there is no way there are close to 1 million of hardware sold and the best selling physical game hasn't surpassed 100K. 

I know people like to use "tracking ahead", but that's not a good indication of what lifetime sales will be. The PS5 I still think will do 6 million lifetime in Japan and will do less than the PS4 worldwide.

I know selling faster at the start doesn't settle the race but PS5 seems to have more hype than PS4 ever had, and globally speaking I can see no reason at all for it to sell less than its predecessor.

Globably? maybe.

in japan? uh... the ps4 didn't need hype, it was basically the only option.

RN switch has a stranglehold in japan and xbox series is actually doing better then the 360 days so... it has competion, and strong ones.

The thing is, this competition doesn't seem to be eating into its sales, otherwise it would be trending below the PS4.

Tales of Arise is heading for 100K+ launch across the PS4/PS5, I think PS5 version is probably going to end up with 80% of the sales; retailers aren't going to order a huge amount of the PS5 SKU. It needs to surpass 250K on the PS4 to become one of the 50 best selling PS4 games, this is probably one of the last games that has a chance to do it and the only one that seems to have a chance this year. WoM will be key.

Tales of Berseria managed 220K on the PS4 and 109K on the PS3, so it's the mark to beat with digital it will likely happen lifetime, still I don't think on these two systems it can achieve some of the franchise heights. It's a difficult to envision a game right now on the PS4/PS5 surpassing 300K across it's SKUs, let alone selling the way Tales games used to sell on the PS1/PS2. 

Top 10 Tales Titles:

1. [PS1] Tales of Destiny (1997) - 895.524
2. [PS2] Tales of Destiny 2 (2002) - 762.861
3. [PS2] Tales of the Abyss (2005) - 714.217
4. [PS1] Tales of Eternia (2000) - 675.586
5. [PS3] Tales of Xillia (2011) - 670.182
6. [PS1] Tales of Phantasia (1998) - 631.904
7. [PS2] Tales of Rebirth (2004) - 596.493
8. [PS2] Tales of Destiny (2006) - 510.299
9. [PS3] Tales of Vesperia (2009) - 465.888
10. [PS3] Tales of Xillia 2 (2012) - 453.810