Its true that pretty much all big Japanese third party games have seen a decline in Japan over the years, most notably Final Fantasy, but Resident Evil and many others have also declined heavily, and they are all pretty much dependant on western sales these days. But multiplatform releases are not always about getting big boost in sales, studios port games all the time to Xbox just to add a percentage here and there to their total sales, which Nintendo releases should also be able to deliver.

Oh there's no doubt of its value, if FFVII R can add 200k to its sales in Japan thats a win. Just that you will essentially still have the top 30 dominated by Nintendo games selling in their 100th week what big 3rd party games are selling in their 4th

With third party stuff, or at least the big AAA stuff like say Final Fantasy, I think it's also a matter of the Japanese audience losing interest because the main ones just stopped coming to their platform of choice.

Current mainline FF hasn't been on a popular platform there since the PS2, same for Resident Evil, etc.

A whole generation of Japanese (those who were DS/PSP/3DS/Switch kids) just grew up without those games, and so don't have a nostalgic attachment to them the way that Millennials who grew up on SNES/PS1/PS2 do.

Come on brother, both PS3 and PS4 sold around 10M each there, how were they not popular? That's like 1/12 of their population owning one.

Not being the lead platform there doesn't equal not being popular, at all.

Popular relatively, like the same gen as those DS sold 32m, 3DS 24m, and Switch 36m.

Was the Wii popular in Japan?

I mean just like Europe will always be known as PS land even though some buy Nintendo consoles there, Japan will be lnown as Nintendo land even though some buy PS there.

Not compared to the DS. Perhaps "preferred" would be the better term to describe what I meant.

Most Japanese gamers at the time had a DS instead of a PS3/Wii and a 3DS/Switch instead of a PS4, so while the audience veered hard into portable consoles from Gen 7 on, AAA kept focusing on home consoles, so most Japanese gamers just learned to live without the likes of mainline Final Fantasy.

Sorry, but your reasoning and conclusion doesn't match, so the comparision comes as really strange, and the justification just doesn't make sense.

The Wii was very popular in Japan, PS3 was popular too, home console sales have always been a lot lower than handhelds there, that's the thing.

Gameboy/Color > Snes

Gameboy Advance > N64

DS > Wii

3DS > Wii U

PSP > PS3

To the point of the PSP selling only half of the PS2 worldwide but being similar in Japan, or the Vita selling more than half what the PS4 did there, meanwhile it was only like 15% worldwide. Not a Playstation thing either, as the 3DS sold less than the Wii worldwide but sold twice as much in Japan.

The systems were popular and able to gather the audience for games with right appeal to be very succesful there.

Playstation has always been popular in Japan until 2024, the point is those franchises not being Japan staples anymore.

When games like Monster Hunter came to the PS4, they sold well, Minecradt for example was selling well on the Vita there as well. Ghost of Tsushima sold over 1M copies on PS4 there, would you look at that...

The point is the games, not the systems. Of course bigger install base = bigger audience to sell to, but that's only a factor to potentialize it.

Playstation was been on a western route for many years now, even closed Japan Studios during the PS4 generation, and as Playstation has always been the lead platform for third party games worldwide, many franchises changed with it, to appeal (or try to) to the western audience.

Final Fantasy 15 and 16 have adopted a very clear action game approach, from the JRPG it was known for in its golden age. It's also backfiring with the western audience as well (that it was trying to appeal), not only in Japan.