DriftingSpirit
Member
An interesting analysis.
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PS4 surpassed Wii U in Japan
- Thread starter Ryng_tolu
- Start date
MoogleWizard
Member
68k LIFETIME sales for Xbox One is just lol. I mean, I know no one cares about Xbox in Japan but that is still insanely low. Do they still release games for the system there and if yes how do they have to pay stores to stock them?
protonion
Member
Literally.
Wii was the last home console successful in the Japanese mainstream. By essentially ignoring that audience the industry let that audience move to the next big thing which in Japan was mobile and the rise of smartphones (the DS hype predates that of the Wii after all). Publishers failed to deliver software that could have kept the audience interested in home consoles, and Nintendo failed to deliver further interesting hardware to renew that interest (the last successful one was Wii Fit). That's why the Wii dropped as hard as it did, and why no other home console was able to contain those losses in Japan. The market completely imploded.
DriftingSpirit
Member
Yeah, games are still released and I wouldn't be surprised if payments were exchanged to keep it all going. I'm not sure about that though.
clevbrowns94
Member
Nice hold for the Wii U all things considered (much better than getting outsold in the UK for example in a week). Splatoon certainly helped to delay the inevitable. Still sad that it only resulted in less than 3 million sales because Japan now hates consoles. Maybe the hybrid NX will do better.
KillerMan91
Member
But how that would have changed the current gaming landscape? Wii would have had couple extra years of good sales but what then? It would not have changed the fate of PS4 and WiiU at all.You could add maybe million or two to current WiiU LTD with better support from the gates but that wouldn't change the bigger picture at all.
Does MS publish Xbone version of COD there? Or does that game skip Xbone altogether in Japan?
Glendemonium
Member
Japan console gaming has been stagnant for a while, people prefer portable and mobile gaming, not every gamer there are into otaku bait is my guess. NX might change things but who knows.
clevbrowns94
Member
I have no idea why they even released the One in Japan. You could see that the Wii U and PS4 are doing poorly there and that's from Japanese companies whose previous consoles did well in Japan. Why would the One do any better, especially when the 360 did awful there?
MoogleWizard
Member
Well, at least MS is supporting the system for the few people that did buy it, that's awesome! An install base of 68k in a country with a population of almost 130 million ... wow.
Bolivar687
Banned
Square Enix publishes CoD iirc and the games don't do too bad either.
Edit: looks like starting with the last one, the manufacturers have indeed started publishing cod on their own:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/sony-publishing-black-ops-3-in-japan/
Lion Heart
Banned
Well deserved, take the country back Sony, please.
PSVR may very well do that.
Summer Lesson is the last hope.
If the industry were earnestly targeting the audience that the DS and Wii captured the current gaming landscape would look completely different nowadays. Only since they didn't we have a very clear split between casual mobile gamers and semi-hardcore handheld and home console gamers, with publishers scrambling trying to reach that much more profitable casual audience on mobile now after they didn't care for them on their home turfs (where they had an advantage and made no use of it). For Japan the main difference is that home console is an absolute niche market nowadays, with no realistic prospect of recovering.
PS4 lifetime sold 10.5 million, half of that is 5.25 million. No way PS4 sells that low, i believe the 30% drop about right.
NX has a good chance to outsell PS2 in Japan.
Will PS4 even beat the 3DS this year?
Much less taking back the country lol when whatever the NX is....
shoryukens
Member
Surprised it took this long. It speaks of Splatoon's staying power more than anything.
Zelda Top 3
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D 636.571
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D 469.082
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds 454.306
PS4 Top 3
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain 497.226
Knack 401.579 (400k were "free" downloads)
Dark Souls III 389.257
Not much chance of that. 3DS is poised to end up with a higher ltd than every PlayStation in Japan (including PS1 and PS2), NX will surely dominate whatever dedicated market is left outside mobile.
Is that supposed to mean something...?
Or are you agreeing with him.
man, I've having to take on both sides rn lol
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
PS4 YTD: 966k
WiiU YTD: 245k
WiiU YTD: 245k
RareFantasy64
Member
If the handheld/console hybrid theories of NX are true I'm curious to see if the NX can revitalize the home console market at all in Japan
By appealing to the most extreme otakus and hikikomoris? Good luck with that.
DQIX is by far the biggest thing there... but it will be split across three platforms including at least one and potentially two handhelds.
The console market in Japan has reached the point that it needs huge system sellers to change the current outcome, and launching a new complimentary hardware platform alone will not do that.
Zelda's not huge anymore but it's still a sizable IP if certain entries can do 400-600k. The Wii U remasters did do really badly though and all the spinoffs pretty mediocre.
Yeah, in the past Zelda has done good numbers. Not excellent (1m+), as of late.
But OP said "Zelda could've kept Wii U above PS4 in 2016."
Guy said "Zelda isn't nearly that big in japan"
You posted how some 3ds Zeldas have sold 100-200k better than PS4 games. like, ok?
you see how your post made me go "what"
Only a game selling like 2-3million on the wii u would have hopes of that kind of effect.
Bingo.
It's actually very typical for Nintendo to cater to the Japanese. New dedicated handhelds just don't seem like a viable option in the West in the year 2017.
Granted, it's also a hybrid home console, so I guess they are covering their bases.
You two sound a bit mad. Also, the PS4 was already close to achieving this without the price drop introduced with the new model.
On topic: Really surprised it took this long to be honest, goes to show how little Japan cares about home consoles, it'll be interesting to see how NX performs there as an hybrid.
Toadthemushroom
Member
I'd be wary of using Persona 5 sales as evidence that interest in PS4 software is picking up. When Yakuza: Kiwami launched early this year, 40% of sales were on PS3. And 30% of Tales of Berseria launch copies were sold on PS3 last month.
While the majority of launch sales of Persona 5 were on PS4, it's more likely that the audience interested in Persona 5 were the people who'd have bought PS4s anyway at this stage, and they aren't necessarily representative of the entire console market in Japan. Likewise, console sales have gone up admirably year-on-year (though last year's sales during this period were depressingly low), but unless Persona 5 has Splatoon-like legs it won't save the PS4, much like how, say, Smash Bros 4 didn't save the Wii U.
Still, Sony needs to do something. Vita is getting long in the tooth for releasing handheld versions of bigger budget games (World of Final Fantasy may be one of the last), and if PS4 Pro and PS VR don't reignite PS4 sales I don't know what will. I wonder if SIE intend to relaunch PS4 in the region along with the Slim and some compelling software.
Interesting post. It's amazing that it even took this long to outsell the Wii U to begin with, and Splatoon is one of the best selling console games in Japan released in the past decade which certainly says something (I'm just not sure what exactly).
With a Splatoon followup, NX is guaranteed to sell at least as well as Wii U in Japan, but it's also absorbing the entirety of the handheld market that came before it. Though I suspect if publishers release upcoming games as cross-gen 3DS/NX (like Monster Hunter 5) NX adoption might not be that fast. We'll see.
Yup. Iwata mentioned in 2014 (I think) that their next platform would make considerations for how people play across the world.
While the majority of launch sales of Persona 5 were on PS4, it's more likely that the audience interested in Persona 5 were the people who'd have bought PS4s anyway at this stage, and they aren't necessarily representative of the entire console market in Japan. Likewise, console sales have gone up admirably year-on-year (though last year's sales during this period were depressingly low), but unless Persona 5 has Splatoon-like legs it won't save the PS4, much like how, say, Smash Bros 4 didn't save the Wii U.
Still, Sony needs to do something. Vita is getting long in the tooth for releasing handheld versions of bigger budget games (World of Final Fantasy may be one of the last), and if PS4 Pro and PS VR don't reignite PS4 sales I don't know what will. I wonder if SIE intend to relaunch PS4 in the region along with the Slim and some compelling software.
Interesting post. It's amazing that it even took this long to outsell the Wii U to begin with, and Splatoon is one of the best selling console games in Japan released in the past decade which certainly says something (I'm just not sure what exactly).
With a Splatoon followup, NX is guaranteed to sell at least as well as Wii U in Japan, but it's also absorbing the entirety of the handheld market that came before it. Though I suspect if publishers release upcoming games as cross-gen 3DS/NX (like Monster Hunter 5) NX adoption might not be that fast. We'll see.
Yup. Iwata mentioned in 2014 (I think) that their next platform would make considerations for how people play across the world.
Countries like UK, Germany are around the same so it all adds up in the end.Eh, it's 3.2 million consoles. That's not nothing. It's more than the gap between the XBO and PS4 in the US, right?
Also, 68k lifetime, wow.
pretty done
Member
Nintendrones out in full force early
Live camera of the home console race in Japan:
PS4
WiiU
XBO
GOD 10/10
Sure I can see that and I probably should've added context to my post originally.
I doubt BOTW would've made much difference alone although it's fresh feeling and divergent enough that I feel it could've done much better than the last several home console Zeldas would imply, especially had it been timed to build on the traction Splatoon and Mario Maker were driving. My comparison was in response to Zelda as an IP not being big anymore. It's still arguably bigger than anything on PS4 yet and bigger than anything on Vita except Minecraft. Bigger than Persona, bigger than Yakuza, bigger than God Eater, etc. 500k territory still seems relatively big for today's dedicated hardware market imo.
That Splatoon has more market power than most of Japan's domestic console development, combined.
ThoughtsOfSpeaking
Banned
Sony cannot save Japan. This really is as good as it gets on the home console front.
The content is barely there now and outside of a handful of vanity AAA projects, it's not coming either.
You simply cannot get away from the fact that the majority of Japanese buying public do not want to game on console anymore.
Expect the PS5 sales to be closer to XB1 than WiiU next gen. The only way is down from here.
The content is barely there now and outside of a handful of vanity AAA projects, it's not coming either.
You simply cannot get away from the fact that the majority of Japanese buying public do not want to game on console anymore.
Expect the PS5 sales to be closer to XB1 than WiiU next gen. The only way is down from here.
Toadthemushroom
Member
Can't wait to see what comes out of Nintendo garage next. Didn't someone have an interesting factoid about Splatoon's sales?
Edit: [Japan] Splatoon: Most Successful New Console IP Since Wii* Series
I made an ugly graph.
Graphing against the XBO is perhaps a bit, ahem, generous to PS4 and Wii U. Here's what their first 2 years look like compared to actually successful consoles:
Astral Dog
Member
Well...ok, it was going to happen eventually, im surprised the Wii U lasted THIS long
Splatoon is an anomaly and perfect storm of aesthetic and appeal and marketing brilliance. I don't think Garage is going to have much luck following that up with another major success, lol. That's a rather impossible bar to follow.
JetSetRadio
Banned
Slow sales don't hurt the japanese support at all though, it's pretty insane what we are getting and localised too.
Toadthemushroom
Member
I also forgot to mention that 30% of copies of Tales of Berseria sold were for the PS3 version when the game launched just over a month ago.
did it though
cual es tu edad
Yeah, it's bigger than PS4 games outside of like FF, DQ and probably something I'm forgetting
It's just not big enough to keep a dead system afloat in japan.
Hm, related to your other comment, if it was Wii U exclusive and came....say Nov 2015 or even 2016, do you think it would've beaten Skyward Sword?
How? Why suddenly any franchise is a gangbuster on NX? Even when they were never on Nintendo platform before?