This is the Japan Console Showdown comparison thread for 2025.

It will be only for the Japan region, and will be the only sales thread from me, that will be updated weekly since the site is updating the worldwide numbers monthly instead of weekly. To be able to update them weekly I will put the Famitsu numbers each week, and when VGChartz releases estimated ones, I will adjust them with those numbers, because the competitor's numbers are VGChartz estimated and not Famitsu ones, and therefore it is more fair to compare them to the numbers from the same place, and at the same time.

The battles for this year for Japan are as follows:

• Nintendo Switch 2 vs NSW '19 (4.45M)
• Nintendo Switch vs PS3 '10 (1.55M)
  
• PS5 vs PS3 '08 (1.05M) vs Vita '16 (831k)

For comparisons of other regions as well as worldwide ones you can check the Ultimate Consoles Showdown 2025 thread, or the Lifetime ones for Worldwide and Regional which are all updated monthly. You want to see how a console compares to it's previous years ? Year on Year Charts Showdown thread is the place.

The target for all of the comparisons is to be as close as possible and to give us better perspective where the given console is going this year and having good chance of finishing close in the end. Therefore if some of the contenders go way too far one from another then, the contender's year, or even the contender itself may change, so that it suits better to the given's console performance. Other thing is also I would not repeat main competitor (on the tables) from the year before from my thread, so even if it's a good fit, I would always look for a different one, so it's always new, fresh and interesting.

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Switch 2019 vs Switch 2 Comparison

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PlayStation 3 2010 vs 2025 Nintendo Switch Comparison

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2008 PlayStation 3 vs 2025 PlayStation 5 Comparison

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Poll from the third quarter of 2025:

Poll from the second quarter of 2025:

Poll from the first quarter of 2025:

Data has been updated with weeks 1 and 2 from Famitsu.

1.5-1.7m is my guess for the Switch this year unless the Switch 2 releases later than expected. For the PS5 1.2-1.3m seems right due to Wilds and a lesser extent GTA 6 and the Pro model helping sales.

Going over the two weeks of 2025 here is what we are dealing with.

Announcement of Switch 2 with a Direct on April 2nd

Sony dropped production on a plethora of software and will stop producing PS4 software

Microsoft says they will be bringing their IP’s over to the competitor’s consoles Switch, Switch 2 and PS5.

Switch is outpacing 2024 by ~16.4k. I expect that Switch will continue to sell close to 2024 numbers up until the Switch 2 is released (rumored by June). So for simplicity by June 30, 2025 Switch will be at 1.32M. Once the Switch 2 is released we should expect the rest of the year to have around a 50% drop in hardware sales. Meaning Switch by Dec 31, 2025 will reach 2.18M.

Switch 2 is announced to have a brand new Mario Kart sometime in its lifecycle. Mario Kart is one of the highest selling Nintendo Switch games in Japan. Switch 2 is also rumored to launch in June. Bloomberg reports that Nintendo wants to sell 20M Switch 2 hardware units in 2025. We should expect Japan to make up at a minimum of 1/3 this amount. Switch 2 by Dec 31, 2025 will sell 6.67M units. This feels really high.

PS5 is behind 2024 by ~19.2k. Considering that the first week of January is usually one of the highest selling weeks (with exceptions of huge AAA game releases) we should expect PS5 to continue to sell at a -24.67% YoY decline until June 30, 2025 reaching 596k. 

They declared that no existing major franchises will get a release before March 31, 2025 and will announce existing major franchises in the State of Play in February. We should expect a reasonable amount of PS5 exclusives in 2025 and with the release of GTA VI nearing the end of 2025 PS5 will make a considerable jump in hardware sales during the second half of the year. By December 31, 2025 PS5 will reach 2.11M.

Xbox Series is ahead of 2024 by 160 units. I expect Xbox Series to be selling near but below what they sold in 2024 as they bring their IPs over to PS5 and Switch 2. By June 30, 2025, Xbox Series will reach 57k. By Dec 31, 2025 Xbox Series will reach 110k.

That's way too high considering the PS5 didn't even reach 1.5m last year. GTA 6 will help but I would guess the series is not as popular in Japan compared to the west so it'll only do so much to make up for the price increase harming sales. 

How did I mess this thread so long?

Subscribed, of course.

I don't know why people continue to believe, or at least act like it's 100% lock GTA VI will release this year. Many of the previous Rockstar titles have been delayed. Many games in general are getting delayed. And especially the big AAA games also are getting delayed left and right in the last decade or even more. Let alone when you threw game in development for 12 years. GTA IV was a far smaller ambition than the V and the VI and ended getting delayed. GTA V released almost 2 years after it's first trailer. And all the people truly believe and expect a far bigger and ambitious game to launch with the same window of 2 years between it's first trailer and it's release ? Absurd. GTA VI is getting delayed to 2026. Mark my word. I've been saying this since the game got announced. I wouldn't say it's impossible in the end to release this year, but I highly doubt it, and the chance for me are something like 80/20 that it won't release this year.

There's no guarantee that GTA VI will come out this year, and I doubt it can reverse what the price hikes cut off in terms of sales.

As for @Shtinamin_ predicting 2.11M, I'm not sure if this wasn't a typo. I'm expecting more something like 1M-1.2M, so if you would reverse the numbers it would come down to the same range.

First i think the original Switch could get to 1,5- (more likley) 2 million this year in Japan. For Switch 2 it entirely depends on when that thing is launching and the launch line up. I highly doubt we will see a Mario Kart, let alone a 3D Mario day 1. I also doubt MP4B will be cross gen. I do not share this widly spread believe. IF MK or 3D Mario launched day 1, sales would be amazing no doubt but first MK and 3D Mario would canibalize themselves and steal away each others thunder. I am sure Nintendo does not want to see that. Also it would canibalize any third party game as most people would only go with Mario Kart/ 3D Mario, leading to the possibility 3rds would cry that their games do not sell on Nintendo systems wich will lead to the possibility, that Switch 2 looses 3rd party support early on before the generation has even started. I don't know why everyone thinks MP4B woukd be Cross gen. Metroid never was. It will deffinitly be on Switch 1 otherwise Nintendo would loose a lot of trust...

For me I'm just going along with it releasing this year for my predictions since that's the current target and to keep things simpler. If it gets delayed I'll change the predictions.

A delay is entirely possible yeah and I said that it'll only do so much to make up for that so there's agreement there.

He said just under 600k by the end of June and that there will be a considerable jump in hardware sales in the 2nd half of the year so I doubt it's a typo since he said he expects higher sales in the 2nd half of the year.