2K units in December. That's incredible.

Yes, the last time I saw that was quite some time ago, so I wasn't sure anymore.

Will be interesting to see if Super Mario Party catches up when it hits the holiday weeks. SMP sold more in weeks 7-12 than it did in weeks 1-6.

Evergreen sales graphs by Hiska-kun on IB:

Great graphs of evergreen software performance in Japan. Here is worldwide quarterly sales data for the current top 10 evergreen first party software.

Look at all the spikes in the Ring Fit graph 

Firstly, Capcom is not the only developer in Japan. This problem will be noticable with studios of all sizes, very much so the smaller studios that aren't Capcom or SE. The second thing is that the Japanese audience for a long time has been a driving force of what type of games Japanese studios should make, which resulted in the unique games from that country. Third, Capcom already has made it known that they see the PC as a more viable platform (for their more bigger budget titles). This only shows that what might come next is that the PS5 is simply a secondary platform to port to rather than the historic default console it has been in Japan. 

On the second part. I think it is pretty fair to call it a dud in Japan now. Why? Because Sony themselves don't care for the country anymore, as there is no stock in Japan during the month that makes them the biggest bucks. It sold barely 2K in December. That says a lot on many levels. Aside from that, PS5 software sales in Japan are near non-existent. 

"Japanese developers have nothing to worry about."

Ofcourse they have something to worry about. The PS brand was huge in Japan and it has sharply declined, which means that developers that usually rely on the PS console as their default console will have to look for alternatives. IMO, there are already clear indicators, namely more games coming to PC and Switch.

The whole expanding to the west argument is flawed in that expanding into another region doesn't equal sacrificing another it would be like if companies back in the late 90s and early 00s ignored US to build themselves up in the PAL region, when they say they want to perform better in the west they mean that they want all regions to perform well for them as market shifts take place every so often and it helps to better withstand them otherwise if a shift happened were western tastes no longer bought into their games as much it would have a big implication on them if they weren't performing well in Japan.

Right now in Japan with PS' performance as a brand we effectively have a near monopoly on the scale almost unseen since the NES days only the platform now holding it also has a monopoly of the portable market which can be leveraged for what's at the moment unchallenged success in the region and an unrivalled dominance of the home market, the problem is a case of the long run as what comes after the Switch is going to be the central issue if this continues which with Sony's approach looks to be the case. It's reasonable to assume that with Nintendo taking their time with a successor which could possibly be 2024 the hardware level of what ever they bring out will have an easier time getting versions of games or even being the lead to be ported to PC like MHR meaning the same developers who are expanding more in the west will still have their games released on it while the smaller developers will just focus on the said platform due to them being more heavily reliant on home sales that's the situation Sony themselves is setting up and it's bizarre that they don't realize.

JP devs are doing better than ever on Playstation.

FF7R fastest selling FF - PS4 exclusive

Nier Automata, best selling Nier game - most sales on PS4

KH3, fastest selling KH - most sales on PS4

DBZ, Naruto, Tekken, former 2 best selling ever, Tekken is approaching best selling entry ever - most sales on PS4

Persona 5, best selling Persona of all time - exclusive to PS4

Tales of Arise, nearly best selling entry of all time in a few months - most sales on PS4

MHW, best selling Japanese third party title off all time, 53% of sales on PS4

The list goes on and on and on.

The reality is nearly all Japanese games get most of their sales overseas, and guess which console has the largest audience for said Japanese games: Playstation.

What you will see is actually the opposite: PS5 will have more notable JP exclusives than PS4. FF16, Forspoken, FF7R, KoF, GG Strive is just the start.

in JAPAN