Yes. I expect it to as long as Nintendo ships enough units. Switch 1 sales will certainly fall off, but I think it would out sell the PS5 even if the PS5 manages to match it's sales from 2025. And honestly, I think PS5 sales will be worse in 2026.

Good last week of 2025 for the Switch 2. Its December in Japan wasn't quite as good as the Switch 1's first December but it got close though how it does in 2026 will be a huge test since there were stock issues for the Switch 2 in Japan but that's at least mostly resolved now I think so this year will show what its normal demand there will be like.

The Switch 1 had a fine last week though considering how it's doing compared to the 3DS it shouldn't be that long now till it consistently starts selling less than 10k a week unless it suddenly starts holding up better than the 3DS so 2025 should be the last year of note for it. The PS5 is the same as it has been lately so not ideal though at least the cheap digital model saved its holiday season from being a complete disaster and will help it throughout 2026 at least somewhat.

The Xbox Series was doing surprisingly well at first but has completely run out of steam now and it's really about time to stop tracking the PS4 with it barely selling 1k last year. Overall the Switch 2 saved this year for Japanese hardware sales and for the next good while will be the only relevant platform in terms of hardware sales by dominating to an absurd degree.

For 2026 my general expectations are about 4m for the Switch 2, 500-600k for the Switch 1 and around 600k for the PS5.

Another failure of a prediction. I predicted for 2025...

Switch - 2.1m (real 1.5m)
PS5- 1.1m (real 880k)

I did at least predict the rough 2:1 ratio. Switch did worse than expected due to Switch 2 doing well. PS5 did worse than expected due to lack of JRPGs and GTA.

Predicting for 2026 would be very risky due to many factors but what the heck.

Switch 2- 5.9m
Switch- 750k
PS5- 660k

I don't think GTA would have a big impact on Japanese sales, its not the megaton there that it is in the West.

Regardless a decent sized game has an impact. JRPGs don't really have impact either tbh. But both factors combined is why I think it is worse.

There's just a shortage in general of Japan-oriented games on PS5 that can't be played elsewhere I'd say; Sony's exclusives cater almost entirely to Western tastes and the third party stuff is increasingly multiplatform.

Despite the success of Switch 2 and a significantly cheaper PS5 debuting for the holidays, both of my predictions for 2025 in Japan still panned out in the end:

Switch 1 reached 1.5m for the year and the PS5 still sold under 1m.

With that the Switch 2 ends the year at 52% of the total PS5 sales in just 7 months. Should pass it this year as I predict it does 4.5 million this year.
Switch 1 at 1.5 million and will most likely be it's last 1+ million year. I predict 600k Switch's sold this year.
PS5+PS4 sales are less than 1 million making this Sony's 3rd year ever where their systems combined sell less than 1 million. It will be worse this year with my prediction being 500k PS5 sold.

2024 was a bit of a golden era for Japanese games for the PS5, it was a good time and sales supported it. Then Sony had the genius idea of increasing the price. Probably a net loss at this point.

Yeah Stellar Blade, Metaphor, FF7 Rebirth, Tekken 8, Like a Dragon, etc, it was a strong lineup. I suspect Sony felt under pressure to increase the price somewhere and just figured it would do the least damage in Japan just cos America and Europe are bigger markets for them.

At least now there's an affordable entry point with the new cut price console, problem is its the digital-only SKU and Japan still clings to physical more so than the West, plus now a lot of Japanese games will be coming to Switch 2 so people won't need to buy a PS5 to play say RE Requiem, Pragmata, etc.