Oh wow Playstation is holding out a lot better than I would have imagined! 480 Playstation titles from a DEAD platform isn't too shabby (but I get it... the figure is misleading... and it could get worse until the shortages end).
Switch is at its peak, PS4 is dead in Japan. PS5 is an enigma atm. But... what are you guys not understanding about Japanese charts being of little relevance to globally desired game? Vita stuff have little impact on western sales, hence Vita was a proper failure! Sure, it is a nice bonus, and huge to smaller developers and the fans of these type of games alike, but it isn't enough to realize the transition The_Liquid_Laser envisioned. I don't think you're fully aware of the context.
Let me ask you a few questions:
1. How many copies are 3rd party games selling in Japan annually?
2. How many of them have been released globally? Do they perform as well there?
3. How many are full priced?
4. How many are indies?
5. What are the current digital ratios of PS4/5 and Switch?
6. How do they compare to global Japanese sales?
7. What type of games sell best? And do they perform similarly overseas?
Japan's trends are different from the rest of the world, do you disagree? Japan is a massive market for Switch (counting 1st parties) but the Switch worldwide isn't big enough to "replace" Playstation on a global level. It can stand as its own strong platform... but it isn't replacing shit. PS5 and PC will continue to be the main driver for Japanese software sales in units and revenue. Because while Switch does have a set of advantages, it also has a set of drawbacks. And I'd hate to sound like a broken record but PS5 and PC are virtually the same platform from a developer standpoint. A game that is made for PS5 will be made on PC and sell great numbers on both. Hence the explosion of Japanese game popularity in the 2nd half of last generation. Even NieR Automata exceeded 6 million. PC picked up without a notable impact on Playstation sales.
Indies and smaller games will prioritize Switch (they generally sell a lot in Japan, but do they worldwide?). A, AA, and AAA will prioritize Playstation and PC. How those smaller games perform on Switch in Japan isn't necessarily enough to dictate the decisions of major publishers and reputed developers. And it's proven not enough to make everyone marginalize Playstation which also keeps getting games that previously skipped the platform.
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First of all this is a Japanese sales thread, Global sales discussion should be discussed elsewhere. What was originally discussed and what I wanted to further detail in my post, is the following point:
"there has been a shift in the Japanese market since 2017, after people realised how successful the Switch would be and it shows more and more every year."
Vita might have been a failure for Sony, but for many smaller Japanese third parties it was basically the last PS Platform they supported as a priority. They would have continued their support had Sony not discontinued and abandoned it. Once Sony discontinued their portable line they lost a good chunk of their advantage over Nintendo in Japan. Having 4-5 big AAA Japanese exclusive third party titles isn't enough if everything else is either multiplatform or exclusive to the Switch in Japan.
Since 1994 Sony has been able to compete in the market thanks to exclusive Third Party support. The PS4 was their best supported system by Japanese third parties as most of them had lost fate in Nintendo after the Wii U bombed and tried to transition their portable titles to the system. Most developers were not ready for the success of the Switch and it took them several years to course correct. The 2014-2017 period is perhaps the closest Sony has come to dominating Japan, however this led them to decisions which ended up alienating both Japanese developers and audiences. Outside of abandoning portables, Japanese Developers no longer have local support for their games, so they need to be in talks with California and cannot communicate in another language besides English. They scaled down their own Sony Japan studios as well which tried to cater to the market. They are applying centralized censorship instead of just using Japanese CERO. "The U.S. office believes the PlayStation business doesn’t need games that only do well in Japan" You can read a bit more in this article from last year regarding Sony's Strategy for Japan:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-07/microsoft-sets-sights-on-sony-s-home-turf-in-game-console-clash
The moment only a handful of AAA Japanese are exclusive and most of them are aiming for WW success, while there is no games that cater to Japan - the system there is no future for them in the country. PS5 isn't an enigma - it's clear that it's not an attractive hardware for Japanese tastes and lacks the exclusive software that caters to the market to overcome this problem.
So now for the first time since 1994 the majority of the Japanese market is supporting Nintendo, this leads to further acceleration in their market share in the country. Since 2017 it has been mainly Nintendo's first party titles that have pushed the Switch to it's current heights. Outside the fact their hardware is well received in Japan, their games on the Switch are some of the best selling titles of all time in the country.
Signs of the change in priorities for larger third parties started to materialized only in late 2020 and were confirmed at the end of the year as for the first time since 1994 Nintendo's hardware had more software releases than the PlayStation ecosystem. If you think Japanese devs would be left by Japanese share-holders to abandon Japan without huge pressure you've got another thing coming. Gaming is a huge cultural export for Japan, so an ecosystem which isn't targeting Japan is likely to be doing X360 software numbers(which PS5 is currently below). Besides this Switch is massively successful eslewhere, and has a similar dominant position in South Korea, Taiwan & China compared to the PlayStation 5.. those markets are actually the second most important for most Japanese developers.
Japanese trends are observed in other East Asian markets, the only difference is that PC is a huge factor there - unlike in Japan where PC is still a fairly small market share of the overall market. So it's increasingly more important to have your game on the Switch and PC if you want to do well, as opposed to the PS4/PS5. You can read a small anecdote about this from today's Bloomberg article:
"Frustration around Sony’s limited inventory is growing among game makers as well as fans of the console. One top Japanese game publisher has found players who used to buy PlayStation versions of its games are now gradually shifting to purchasing the PC edition, said an executive who asked not to be named."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-11/sony-trims-playstation-5-assembly-plans-after-chip-shortages-hit
If you want to answer your questions I suggest you start by Google Searching "Media Create CY" and looking through the past decade of sales information on all platforms and compare it to the current situation.
Last edited by noshten - on 11 November 2021
