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Forums - Sales Discussion - Famitsu sales: Week 33, 2021 - (9th August - 15th August)

Ashadelo said:

I live in China, and all the PS5 that are always advertised on 淘宝,拼多多,激动 etc are 90% from Japan. So I do know a lot of the PS5 bought here are from Japan

I can confirm this is fairly common. Used to happen a lot with Switch before it got its official Chinese debut. My own Switch was imported from Japan (I'm from Brazil) 

This is also explain the awful software sales, if most of copies are being exported then this will reflect on bad game sales 



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I admit  the way japanese studios still giving sub-par treatment for Switch make me REALLY concerned with the state of japanese market. If they continue following Sony blindingly and PS5 keep tanking in game sales many of those studios won't last very long which overall will diminish japanese gaming output except the big studios that can sell very well outside Japan (Capcom, Square, Bandai Namco, etc) 

Last edited by IcaroRibeiro - on 22 August 2021

IcaroRibeiro said:

I admit  the way japanese studios still giving sub-par treatment for Switch make me REALLY concerned with the state of japanese market. If they continue following Sony blindingly and PS5 keep tanking in game sales many of those studios won't last very long which overall will diminish japanese gaming output except the big studios that can sell very well outside Japan (Capcom, Square, Bandai Namco, etc) 

There's still time for them to wise up; we've already seen some companies pivot in their support of Switch, and others should follow as it becomes more and more impossible to ignore which way the wind is blowing in Japan.



curl-6 said:
IcaroRibeiro said:

I admit  the way japanese studios still giving sub-par treatment for Switch make me REALLY concerned with the state of japanese market. If they continue following Sony blindingly and PS5 keep tanking in game sales many of those studios won't last very long which overall will diminish japanese gaming output except the big studios that can sell very well outside Japan (Capcom, Square, Bandai Namco, etc) 

There's still time for them to wise up; we've already seen some companies pivot in their support of Switch, and others should follow as it becomes more and more impossible to ignore which way the wind is blowing in Japan.

I get some of their concern however. Switch is far underpowered when compared to other platforms, many of them want their games to be competitive with western games to sell well on PCs and whatnot. 

In big scope, Switch domination in Japan will further deep the already immense distance between big Japanese studios and mid sized Japanese studios. Only the big ones will remain competitive in western space, which was something that always happened but was changing last generation with more and more Japanese games getting traction outside Japan. 

Perhaps Monster Hunter Rise PC port sales will be my ultimate measurement to know if there is any hope for Japanese developers to make any breaktrough while still prioritizing Switch. If it sells fine, then I can see Switch-designed japanese games can still having market in West, if not then I must JP market and Western markets will evolve to be completely different from now on, except by Nintendo first and second party games 



IcaroRibeiro said:
curl-6 said:

There's still time for them to wise up; we've already seen some companies pivot in their support of Switch, and others should follow as it becomes more and more impossible to ignore which way the wind is blowing in Japan.

I get some of their concern however. Switch is far underpowered when compared to other platforms, many of them want their games to be competitive with western games to sell well on PCs and whatnot. 

In big scope, Switch domination in Japan will further deep the already immense distance between big Japanese studios and mid sized Japanese studios. Only the big ones will remain competitive in western space, which was something that always happened but was changing last generation with more and more Japanese games getting traction outside Japan. 

Perhaps Monster Hunter Rise PC port sales will be my ultimate measurement to know if there is any hope for Japanese developers to make any breaktrough while still prioritizing Switch. If it sells fine, then I can see Switch-designed japanese games can still having market in West, if not then I must JP market and Western markets will evolve to be completely different from now on, except by Nintendo first and second party games 

Japanese studios can support the Switch while still selling outside Japan. The West loves the Switch as well and the Nintendo crowd tend to like Japanese fare more so than say, the Xbox base.

Rise has done extremely well not just in Japan but worldwide, while success has also been found by the likes of Octopath Traveler and Sakuna.



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heavenmercenary01 said:
TomaTito said:

Can Switch do a third full sweep this year?

Ghost of tsushima released this week. so no 3rd full sweep this week.

Then let's see what happens the week after that.

Could be that the stars aligned these past two weeks.



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curl-6 said:
IcaroRibeiro said:

I get some of their concern however. Switch is far underpowered when compared to other platforms, many of them want their games to be competitive with western games to sell well on PCs and whatnot. 

In big scope, Switch domination in Japan will further deep the already immense distance between big Japanese studios and mid sized Japanese studios. Only the big ones will remain competitive in western space, which was something that always happened but was changing last generation with more and more Japanese games getting traction outside Japan. 

Perhaps Monster Hunter Rise PC port sales will be my ultimate measurement to know if there is any hope for Japanese developers to make any breaktrough while still prioritizing Switch. If it sells fine, then I can see Switch-designed japanese games can still having market in West, if not then I must JP market and Western markets will evolve to be completely different from now on, except by Nintendo first and second party games 

Japanese studios can support the Switch while still selling outside Japan. The West loves the Switch as well and the Nintendo crowd tend to like Japanese fare more so than say, the Xbox base.

Rise has done extremely well not just in Japan but worldwide, while success has also been found by the likes of Octopath Traveler and Sakuna.

Very true. Octopath Traveler was the best selling game in the USA the month it came out. There’s definitely a market for “smaller” Japanese games in the west, specially in places like the USA, Mexico and Brazil.  



IcaroRibeiro said:
curl-6 said:

There's still time for them to wise up; we've already seen some companies pivot in their support of Switch, and others should follow as it becomes more and more impossible to ignore which way the wind is blowing in Japan.

I get some of their concern however. Switch is far underpowered when compared to other platforms, many of them want their games to be competitive with western games to sell well on PCs and whatnot. 

In big scope, Switch domination in Japan will further deep the already immense distance between big Japanese studios and mid sized Japanese studios. Only the big ones will remain competitive in western space, which was something that always happened but was changing last generation with more and more Japanese games getting traction outside Japan. 

Perhaps Monster Hunter Rise PC port sales will be my ultimate measurement to know if there is any hope for Japanese developers to make any breaktrough while still prioritizing Switch. If it sells fine, then I can see Switch-designed japanese games can still having market in West, if not then I must JP market and Western markets will evolve to be completely different from now on, except by Nintendo first and second party games 

I'm pretty sure the opposite will be true.  The small and mid-sided games have trouble getting discovered, because they don't have the budgets of the big games.  Therefore they get overshadowed on Playstation where budget size matters a whole lot.  On the Switch the small to mid budget games don't compete directly with the big budget third party games.  RPGs on the Switch don't compete with the latest Final Fantasy and horror games don't compete with the latest Resident Evil.  This means that if a "smaller" budget game has exceptional gameplay then it will have an easier time getting discovered on the Switch.

No one knew who From Software was until Sony gave them a chance with Demon's Souls.  The next type of From Software-like phenomenon will be on the Switch though.  Sony isn't looking for this kind of studio from Japan anymore.  A small to mid-sized Japanese studio that gets surprise success will be on the Switch.

Switch's dominance in Japan actually gives the smaller studios a chance to shine and get discovered.



The_Liquid_Laser said:
IcaroRibeiro said:

I get some of their concern however. Switch is far underpowered when compared to other platforms, many of them want their games to be competitive with western games to sell well on PCs and whatnot. 

In big scope, Switch domination in Japan will further deep the already immense distance between big Japanese studios and mid sized Japanese studios. Only the big ones will remain competitive in western space, which was something that always happened but was changing last generation with more and more Japanese games getting traction outside Japan. 

Perhaps Monster Hunter Rise PC port sales will be my ultimate measurement to know if there is any hope for Japanese developers to make any breaktrough while still prioritizing Switch. If it sells fine, then I can see Switch-designed japanese games can still having market in West, if not then I must JP market and Western markets will evolve to be completely different from now on, except by Nintendo first and second party games 

I'm pretty sure the opposite will be true.  The small and mid-sided games have trouble getting discovered, because they don't have the budgets of the big games.  Therefore they get overshadowed on Playstation where budget size matters a whole lot.  On the Switch the small to mid budget games don't compete directly with the big budget third party games.  RPGs on the Switch don't compete with the latest Final Fantasy and horror games don't compete with the latest Resident Evil.  This means that if a "smaller" budget game has exceptional gameplay then it will have an easier time getting discovered on the Switch.

No one knew who From Software was until Sony gave them a chance with Demon's Souls.  The next type of From Software-like phenomenon will be on the Switch though.  Sony isn't looking for this kind of studio from Japan anymore.  A small to mid-sized Japanese studio that gets surprise success will be on the Switch.

Switch's dominance in Japan actually gives the smaller studios a chance to shine and get discovered.

Yeah, looking Falcon. The graphics are horrendous and, for much time, it´s a Playstation exclusive. All the novel games too.

Sony never grows the market, only sit in their pre-existence excellent worldwide distribution and supply games this way. When Nintendo goes down the market goes down too, when Sony goes down, the market grows, sometimes. Since Switch's launch, the Japanese market again expands. Sony, before the great rupture company, know for walkman, remain so little.  Ps4 domination in Japan only make the market decrease. 

The AA and AAA it´s not because of the platform, but the budget. It´s why compile heart, falcon have ps2/ps3 graphics on Ps5. So you argue it´s a false concerned and false problematization. The switch works in Unreal Engine 5 and other moderns engines. 

U know the switch sells excellent in US and Europe? And have a multitude Japanese games that sells well in the west. Japan needs to go to the west, it´s a false narrative when the sony plataform crashes in East Asia and Nintendo became a dominant force there. You have many Bandai Namco crash and burn in the west, Sega games crash in the sony consoles and nobody think, well the chance it´s lost. 

Now Nintendo doesn´t have one big-budget game with worldwide appeal, besides MHrise, and this game it´s selling very well in the West. So your concern it´s not based in actual sales. 



RolStoppable said:
Bofferbrauer2 said:

Doesn't Sony import the console to China yet or why do people import their consoles from foreign countries in China?

The official PS5 launch in China happened in May, but the weekly shipments to the country are too low to fulfill demand.

I doubt that Sony is oblivious to the situation in Japan where hardware is being sold, but hardly any software goes with it. Yet they continue to ship a number of PS5 units to Japan that notably exceeds demand. The physical tie ratio for the PS5 in Japan is ~0.4 while digital sales account for 50% of all software sales at best (the actual figure is most likely lower); so the best case scenario after nine months is that the PS5 has a tie ratio of ~0.8 in Japan. But even the routinely slow-starting PS software in Japan should have reached a tie ratio of about 1.5 by now. So what's going on? Likely around half of the PS5 hardware units that have been sold in Japan so far have left the country afterwards to be sold/used elsewhere. There's no better explanation for these Japanese hardware and software sales that don't match.

I assume that Sony knows what's going on, but doesn't adjust allocations in order to boost their standing in Japan. A lot of notable third party publishers are located in Japan, so having somewhat good PS5 hardware sales is important to foster development support. Based on PS5 software sales, hardware shipments of ~5k per week would have been sufficient a long time ago. The PS4 had many sub-10k weeks in its first year and that was with better software sales, so a weekly baseline of ~5k for the PS5 is far from unthinkable.

Not only does it boost their standing in Japan but the folks buying the exported consoles are likely to buy games digitally since physical software wont be as available, or in some cases, available at all.

It'll help Sony push the idea of a digital only future.



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