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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Has the Switch taken over the entire Japanese market?

Sogreblute said:

Nintendo always had the Japanese market except during the PS2/Gamecube/GBA days where it was even. I'm seeing a lot of people saying that the reason the Switch is dominating is because it's a handheld while PS4 and PS5 are home consoles. No, I don't believe that is the reason. Playstation has been on a decline in Japan after the PS3 and PSP days. PS4 sold 1 million units worse than the PS3 and the PS Vita sold 1/3 of the PSP sales. If Japan was all about that handheld gaming then someone explain why the PS Vita sold 6 million in comparison to the PS4's 9.4 million. Sony making a new handheld system isn't going to suddenly make them relevant in the Japanese market, because the PS Vita showed that even with a handheld system Playstation is just losing relevance. The PS5 will be no different. It will sell worse than the PS4. I'm predicting lifetime sales will be 6-7 million.

you say that when japan was the only place where the vita was relevent in the first place despite the horrible first party support it got.

sony doing that is also probs why japan would probably not trust sony with another handheld unless it comes out the gate with a bang.

Sony squanderd their vita fanbase while nintendo, with thier as much of a failure wii U kept on giving content to the thing even though finantially it would have probs beeen better to cut their losses, bulding up faith, faith that probs  paid off with the high initial adoption rate for thw switch.



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It’s interesting how some factor in the fact that the Switch can be played in handheld mode. Because the games themselves are not in their usual handheld prices (whatever the yen’s equivalent to $30-40). They’re usually sold around $50-60 with a few big games from Square and Capcom rereleasing their games at lower prices.



Kai_Mao said:

It’s interesting how some factor in the fact that the Switch can be played in handheld mode. Because the games themselves are not in their usual handheld prices (whatever the yen’s equivalent to $30-40). They’re usually sold around $50-60 with a few big games from Square and Capcom rereleasing their games at lower prices.

I’m not sure how relevant that is, especially considering the amount of time many of these $50-$60 hour games give you (as opposed to their traditional handheld counterparts) and there is such a robust indie scene and discount heavy EShop that it’s just as affordable dollar per hour. I’m barely taking advantage of the biggest titles on the Switch and I’m not feeling like I’m losing out just because there is so much affordable quality content. 



Why has playstation stopped making games that used to sell in japan? Ps1 and ps2 days were golden.



TheBraveGallade said:
Sogreblute said:

Nintendo always had the Japanese market except during the PS2/Gamecube/GBA days where it was even. I'm seeing a lot of people saying that the reason the Switch is dominating is because it's a handheld while PS4 and PS5 are home consoles. No, I don't believe that is the reason. Playstation has been on a decline in Japan after the PS3 and PSP days. PS4 sold 1 million units worse than the PS3 and the PS Vita sold 1/3 of the PSP sales. If Japan was all about that handheld gaming then someone explain why the PS Vita sold 6 million in comparison to the PS4's 9.4 million. Sony making a new handheld system isn't going to suddenly make them relevant in the Japanese market, because the PS Vita showed that even with a handheld system Playstation is just losing relevance. The PS5 will be no different. It will sell worse than the PS4. I'm predicting lifetime sales will be 6-7 million.

you say that when japan was the only place where the vita was relevent in the first place despite the horrible first party support it got.

sony doing that is also probs why japan would probably not trust sony with another handheld unless it comes out the gate with a bang.

Sony squanderd their vita fanbase while nintendo, with thier as much of a failure wii U kept on giving content to the thing even though finantially it would have probs beeen better to cut their losses, bulding up faith, faith that probs  paid off with the high initial adoption rate for thw switch.

I think situations are different. Sony never planned to really put their teams working on Vita development and instead trusted third parties to fill their library, kinda like they always did did with their consoles in Japan, but the support for Vita was much smaller than expected and was just too late for them to funding new teams to make games that were likely to not come in at least 3 years 

As for Nintendo, they had most of their teams working on Wii U games, so it was just a matter of releasing what they had done, even if the system was unsuccessful what else could they do? Hide finished games for 4 years until their next console? 



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KratosLives said:

Why has playstation stopped making games that used to sell in japan? Ps1 and ps2 days were golden.

I guess the right answer is, they didn't. Most of their best selling games were third parties. Why those third parties lost relevance? I dunno 

Japanese didn't bother to buy even the little Master piece of a remake that is Resident Evil 2, maybe they just lost interest of the games that used to be popular on the 90s 

I would really like a demographic breakdown of who buy games in Japan. I wouldn't be surprised if gen z kids, who never played any PS1/PS2 before, were indifferent towards Playstation IPs



IcaroRibeiro said:
KratosLives said:

Why has playstation stopped making games that used to sell in japan? Ps1 and ps2 days were golden.

I guess the right answer is, they didn't. Most of their best selling games were third parties. Why those third parties lost relevance? I dunno 

Japanese didn't bother to buy even the little Master piece of a remake that is Resident Evil 2, maybe they just lost interest of the games that used to be popular on the 90s 

I would really like a demographic breakdown of who buy games in Japan. I wouldn't be surprised if gen z kids, who never played any PS1/PS2 before, were indifferent towards Playstation IPs

IMO a massive decline in quality.

Final Fantasy helped PS1/2 massively in Japan. It used to be my favourite franchise, by far, too. IMO the series is now just crap. It also has much fewer releases than it used to and has partially lost exclusivity. It still sells relatively well here, but it's still seen a massive decline since the PS1/2 days.

Resident Evil is a series I feel a very similar way about. It was great on PS1, hasn't really impressed me since. Even the RE2 remake you mentioned I don't think that was as good as RE used to be. It was good, sure, but that's all. Not ground breaking or anything. Plus there are some changes in it that really put me off.

Dynasty Warriors is another series that has done the same. Was huge on PS2, but some pretty poor entries have really killed sales for the franchise. Surely doesn't help that DW6, the first entry on PS3, was one of the worst of the franchise. Although the most recent DW9 may well have taken that title now. So that's yet another franchise that screwed up the transition from PS2 to PS3. Probably doesn't help that its sister franchise Samurai Warriors was a timed exclusive for Wii too.

Gran Turismo was massive on PS1/2 but has declined as well. Personally I've never been a fan of the franchise, but review scores have shown a pretty steady decline with GT Sport being its nadir, at least backing up the suggestion that a decline in quality is behind the decline in sales.

Crash Bandicoot was pretty big here on PS1, it's decline post-PS1 is pretty well documented. Sony never really created a new mascot platformer to replace it either. Knack actually did fairly well here, proving there was demand for one if it was good, granted Knack did benefit from heavy bundling too.

Metal Gear Solid was fantastic on both PS1/2 but IMO has steadily declined since and now with Kojima out of Konami is effectively dead.

Winning Eleven was big here back on PS2, it was big in Europe then too. It was then subsequently slaughtered by FIFA in terms of quality, and perhaps most importantly licencing agreements. It's now tiny compared to FIFA, and unlike in Europe FIFA didn't take its sales in Japan, they just disappeared, possibly as a result of Konami maintaining exclusive rights to the J League licence. So a huge decline in the franchise with no viable competitor for people to go to.

What else? Dragon Quest is of course massive, DQ11 would suggest it's at least maintained its quality, but it did go Nintendo exclusive for awhile and even with DQ11 was multi-platform, so doesn't really benefit PS over Nintendo like it used to for PS1/2.

In short, a lot of Japanese franchises that the PS1/2 depended on have changed direction since then. Sales would suggest those changes were made to appeal to the western audience at the expense of the Japanese one (which you could argue is the case for Sony's position on PS as a whole too).



KratosLives said:

Why has playstation stopped making games that used to sell in japan? Ps1 and ps2 days were golden.

Sony was never responsible for those games... Their only big hit in Japan is GT. They've always relied on 3rd party for Japanese success



Sony are firmly focused on the Western market, and the third party franchises that made PS1 and PS2 massive have mostly declined or are now shared with Switch.

Xbox were always a non-factor in Japan, so for Japanese players it comes down to a choice between PS4/5 and Switch, and the hybrid form factor plus Nintendo's megaton franchises like Pokemon, Animal Crossing and Splatoon make it by far the more attractive choice.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 10 January 2023

Otter said:
KratosLives said:

Why has playstation stopped making games that used to sell in japan? Ps1 and ps2 days were golden.

Sony was never responsible for those games... Their only big hit in Japan is GT. They've always relied on 3rd party for Japanese success

Everybody's Golf on the PS1 was a million seller.