Honestly I don't think there's anything practical Sony could of done to compete with Nintendo. The recent price hikes etc are a reflection of them seeing a roof in the product they offer. Continuing a line of handhelds wouldn't of made sense as costs of software development went up. Even then they lacked any major IP aside from GT that Japan cared about. Everything else was dependant on third parties.

Playstation was born on the power of Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Tekken, DQ etc and all of those IPs still are on playstation and have often been exclusive, they've just either lost their power with recent entries or just aren't enough to make the hardware compelling. And sony was never going to design hardware around one market alone. Nintendo went the Switch route because it made sense for them and where their IPs and appeal lay. It wouldn't of made sense for Playstation in the past.

My only gripe is that I wish Sony more carefully created  their own Japanese IP. Japan studios always felt like they had potential but were shooting in the dark with very random games and without much core ambition or oversight governing quality of output. But ultimately looking at a global scale, I'm happy with how things are. Playstation and Nintendo offer something both quite distinct and that benefits gamers and developers alike. PS5 is easily the best console platform for broad gaming experiences, last year alone for JRPGs was insane.

King Switch getting closer to 160 million !

My hope is that with this Thursday's numbers for week 2, it will show "last week" numbers which will let us calculate the splits.

The only thing Sony can do is come back releasing portable consoles. Currently there are many games that can be scaled back, with help of modern engines, which could make porting games easier. The problem however is those games are clearly made with TV in mind and the audience is limitado to people who really wants to play those games portable no matter what 

I think a new Sony handheld could sell between 25-35 million units, granted it received the majority of PS5 library and included free versions of the library you already own. The question is, is Sony willing to make hardware to sell that little and get barely any revenue from hardware and software only to sell more units in Japan? I don't think so 

Could we make an educated guess for week 52 and week 1 split hardware Switch numbers while we wait for the real numbers?

If we are to take the low end we can look back to the last week of 2023 and the first week of 2024 hardware sales for the Switch, since trends like that are stable (last week of 2022 and first week of 2023 were similar-ish).

2023 sold ~80k while 2024 sold ~104k. And with the data of the unsplit for week 52 of 2024 and week 1 of 2025 is ~186k. With the low end week 52 could have sold 80-86k and week 1 could have sold 100-106k. Just some fun speculation here.

The problem with Sony making a handheld is that it will run into the same problem that Nintendo did: Having to support two systems. No company is exempt from that in today's market. Look at how long it takes Sony's games to arrive for the PS5 now. Imagine if it had to develop for a PSP 3 as well.

The only way that Sony could realistically compete with Nintendo in Japan would be to make the Playstation 6 a hybrid system and that would critically limit the company's mantra of delivering a cutting-edge home console with its next entry. Why on earth would Sony want to fight an uphill battle against Nintendo in Japan when it can do what it does best, which is make a very western oriented console for its biggest IPs, which also appeal to the west: Spider-Man, God of War, The Last of Us, Uncharted, Horizon, Helldivers, etc.

I realize that it is very unfortunate for Playstation fans in Japan that Sony has taken this route, but in the long run it is all the better for it when you consider how Sony fares now on a global scale. Plenty of room in the western gaming market for both a "Playstation" and a "Switch" to not only coexist, but for both to thrive. But ultimately, it does result in Playstation giving up competing with Nintendo in its home country.

I made a post about this in another forum a few days ago, but I'll reiterate what I said here b/c I think it's pretty relevant:

Honestly, I feel like the PS5 is in an interesting situation right now. It's arguably Sony's most successful console to date, at least in terms of raw revenue and profits, but I feel similarly to it as I do the Wii, in that it has clearly exposed a lot of vulnerabilities in Sony's business model that could very much come back to bite then in the next generation, as Nintendo learned with the Wii.

Firstly, one very clear issue with the PS5 that has been somewhat masked by the high per-unit sales and consistent sales pace is that sales in Europe and Japan are very noticeably beginning to lag behind the PS4, likely due to growing competition from the PC space and economic woes. This has been compensated for by increased sales in NA, almost certainly due to Playstation continuing to steal console players from Xbox. If not for that, its sales trajectory would not look nearly as rosy.

Another issue is that Sony has arguably reached the limit of their current business model. AAA games are harder to produce than ever with diminishing returns. Hardware has also gotten way more pricey lately, with the loss-leader model of console sales collapsing. I wouldn't be surprised if the next-gen PS6 costs $700, and for what? Even cutting-edge PCs nowadays don't offer a significant bump in graphical fidelity over the PS5, unless ur way up the Nvidia pipeline, which given the costs of their GPUs will likely prevent them from making any significant headway into the console market. The final straw has to be if Switch 2 is capable of running current-gen multi-plats, which would render the current status quo of market segmentation between the two companies practically null and void.

What we can say for sure is that Sony's back does seem to be against a wall in a shrinking market sector. With Nintendo utterly dominant in the handheld market and Microsoft and Steam encroaching with PC and PC handhelds, Sony's best bet at this point is hoping that they can consolidate what remains of the home console market by forcing Xbox out of it. Only time will tell if that will work out for them...

Switch being up YOY is extraordinary.
35 million units, in a single country, is also a phenomenal achievement.
Well deserved though, it's one of the greatest systems ever.

My guess is week 1 is somewhat higher than week 52 but even with that it means the Switch's 2024 ended at 3.1m which is extremely impressive for its age and notably higher than my expectations early in the year of about 2.7m. The Switch not being released late last year helped of course but still it's still quite the feat for it to be up in December and its starting of this year strong too though it looks likely that the Switch 2 will start impacting it really soon so there's probably just a few months of good sales left but with it now at 35m that's not even remotely an issue. A decline of only a bit under 25% for 2024 is great but it could be over 50% this year but even with that 37m would still be a possibility.

The PS5 had a surprisingly good couple weeks with week 52 leaving at it at nearly 1.5m for 2024 which isn't bad by itself but over 40% down is rough even with 2023 being abnormally high and it's notably lower than the nearly 1.8m the PS4 did in its equivalent year. The price cut will keep hurting but at least Wilds is around the corner to help out the first stretch of the year so about 1.3m seems likely for it this year but things could get rough in 2026 once the Switch 2 is properly established.

Overall 2024 was weaker than the previous few years for the Japanese market but 2025 and the rest of this decade in general should be really strong for it mostly thanks to the Switch 2 so it's an exciting time for it for sure.

Also @Sephiran you should update the OP with the hardware numbers.

I agree with your prognosis. I expect around a 33% decline YoY for the Switch in Japan for 2025 even with the successor on the field.