Sorry, but if you try to go that route and actually calculate this, then the only result you can get is that the Western market is also crumbing and crashing down, not just the Japanese one.

The reason for this is that the markets double consolidated:

1. The big publishers bought many smaller publishers and independent studios, removing many smaller (A/AA) titles from the market who typically sold arounf those numbers.
2. The publishers themselves shrank their studios down to just release a couple of high-profile titles each year instead of 30+ titles every year as they did in the 90's.

Without the rise of both the indie market and the comeback of smaller publishers, we'd have to rely just on the big publishers, and as a result, we would get less than 50 unique game releases each year across all platforms, possibly even less than 30. Really, just look how many titles Activision, EA or Ubisoft have developed and released each year since 2020. They have mostly retreated to their halo game series (Activision: Call of Duty, Ubisoft: Rainbow Six and Just Dance, EA: Sports series), padded out wit some remasters/remakes and the occasional new game, and even then many of those are from older series or licensed games.

It's funny that Nintendo is often accused of just making Mario games when all the big publishers do that exact thing. But Nintendo is pretty much the only one who actually not doing it and pads it's lineup out much more with smaller titles not related to it's halo series than the competition. The reason for this is most likely that Nintendo has to rely much more on it's own software to sell it's hardware than their competition.

In revenue for consoles the global market has been about the same, even registered a record revenue in 2021 with 33 billion. But in Japan the peak was 2006 to 2009, and the decline (in revenue, not unit sales) only started to be reversed when Switch was released in 2017

According to Famitsu looks like the growth after 2017 was driven to services, subscriptions and MTX, you can check this thread here

There are some questions to adressed:

- On software side they are merging PC software sales and console software sales, we do not have a breakdown. But reports indicate a significant increase in PC gamers, reaching 16 million in 2021. So the increase in software sales are 99% sure due to PC gaming getting stronger

- With Switch 1 approaching their end of life, the console revenue declined 30% in 2024, and we don't know if Switch 2 will sell enough to offset the impact of aging Switch 1

- The increase in revenue from 2021 to 2024 seems to be partially driven by inflaction prices. In Japan prices were mostly static for the last 20 years, but now services and software are finally increasing in prices and this leads to 

My conclusion is Japan is not a dying market, but the console market is stagnant while the PC market is booming, plus the focus is shifting from unit sales to services/subscriptions. It needs to be see how this consumer behavior will affect Switch 2 games, because Nintendo revenues come mostly from physical games and don't invest as much in live services

The Japanese gaming market isn't niche or dying, the focus has just shifted to mobile phones, Switch, and PC while PS home consoles are diminishing.

The PC gaming sector there for instance tripled in size from 2019 to 2023: https://www.serkantoto.com/2024/10/03/japan-pc-gaming-market-size/

Switch of course has become the highest selling game system in Japanese history.

It's Sony and some of the third parties that centre around them that are doing poorly, the former due to an unattractive price and a lack of exclusive games catering to Japanese tastes, and the latter as a result of being tied to a declining platform.

No numbers this week?

My perception has been completely opposite to what you're suggesting regarding the bolded but I'll get back that...

When I referenced 30 titles selling 500k in 2007 I wasn't discriminating against any publisher, so it doesn't matter who they are or whether they're indie nor not. What I was questioning was the number of games hitting that mark, point blank. And in turn simply saying that  a select handful of Nintendo games having higher peaks or being evergreen  doesn't necessarily compensate for much fewer games on a per year basis being successful or hitting certain benchmarks (if that is the case).

I also haven't specifically looked at the data across all years (I have last year versus 2007 and its a stark difference) so it was quite literally a suggestion that these are the things to try and gauge when making statements about the state of the Japanese market as opposed to simply focusing on Nintendo's success/Playstations decline. We need a whole picture.

As far as the West is concerned, sales seem to be stable or increasing for most franchises and million sellers are more common then they ever have been, especially for more niche titles. Budgets have also increased so this doesn't mean "success" but lets just looking the sales numbers alone for now. Titles like Persona and Dynasty Warriors are hitting new peaks in the west and there are way fewer steep declines (i.e Dragon Age), whilst the big titles are still carrying their weight... Whereas in Japan it seems most franchises are declining quite notably. 

That software situation is the crux of why Japan is highlighted and spoken about in this way. We are after all in the Japan thread and this is the only country thread where we get hard numbers which paint start pictures in how many franchises have fallen compared to their peaks. I'd add the Spain thread was also pretty gloomy when Playstation was supply constraint but it just gets less traction. Back to Japan, When we see a resident evil game hit 10m units WW but see that it's Japanese numbers are the series' lowest that is the fuel to these presumptions that the West is carrying these games but we shouldn't ignore elsewhere in Asia either. As mentioned a lot, In Japan it of course could just be a platform problem and the Swicth 2 might resolve this but this is how things are now.

...Or Japanese tastes have moved away from these IPs and their gameplay experiences, and Playstations reliance on them is in fact the cause for its decline (chicken and the egg sitch). None the less, the picture in the west looks very different IMO where it seems there are more evenly spread success stories. This is my perception through following sales news but some hard data is welcome to challenge any of these notions.

Of course, we only know half the picture in Japan because digital is not really spoken about.

Just double checking, this includes software revenue?

Famitsu Sales: Week 17, 2025 (Apr 21 - Apr 27)

00./00. [NSW] The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy (Aniplex) {2025.04.24} (¥7.000) - 22.675 / NEW
00./02. [NSW] Super Mario Party: Jamboree (Nintendo) {2024.10.17} (¥6.480) - 6.086 / 1.277.231 (-3%)
00./03. [NSW] Minecraft # (Microsoft Game Studios) {2018.06.21} (¥3.600) - 4.870 / 3.867.336 (-4%)
00./05. [PS5] Monster Hunter Wilds # (Capcom) {2025.02.28} (¥9.082) - 4.055 / 801.914 (-6%)
00./06. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo) {2017.04.28} (¥5.980) - 4.013 / 6.311.725 (-3%)

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