Topic: ? Days Until the Switch outsells the PS4 in Japan

I've heard that the Switch and the PS4 currently have a gap of 400,000 in lifetimes sales in Japan. It seems inevitable that the Switch will outsell the PS4 in the country within a few months. Thoughts?

Interesting, but ultimately not that big of a deal. I don't know of anyone who considers sales as a main factor in deciding which gaming device they are gonna buy. Most people I have spoken to consider just what devices their friends have, what games are on the machine, and what features the machine has. We like to look at the numbers and the rivalries but ultimately they don't mean much. The PS4 did well, the Switch is doing well. What does that mean for gamers? More games for us!

Interesting news. Thanks for sharing! The Switch and Wii U were the only current gen consoles I bothered to buy (I'm not interested in most M-rated franchises, so I've never been fully committed to the idea of buying either of the competitor's consoles). As such, just about any Switch success story makes me happy!

Only around 30k more Switches sell than PS4s every month.

So it won't happen until Animal Crossing and Pokemon Sword & Shield arrive.

@Magician From 28th of January to 24th of February the Switch sold 169,800 more units than the PS4 (all versions) in Japan. (249980 vs 80151) Don't know how you're getting your numbers unless if you're confusing weekly sales with monthly sales.

The Japanese numbers are impressive, but I think the worldwide sales of the PS4 will be hard to beat, and in the end... does it really matter which console sells the most? The Switch is a success, hopefully we can all agree on that.

This shouldn't really surprise anyone. Remember that globally the PS4 is the best selling console of this generation with the 3DS about 20mill behind. In Japan however the 3DS outsold the PS4 by about 3:1 and the Vita ended up not being too far behind the PS4. In the US the PS4 outsold the Wii U by 5:1, in Europe it was more like 10:1 but in Japan it was only around 2:1. Think about that for a second, the Wii U gained a greater share of the market in Japan than the XBOne did in Europe.

So of course when the Switch managed to match PS4 sales globally it inevitably cleans up in Japan. Nintendo seems to understand the Japanese market far better than Sony does. Always has, even in their lowest points.

@Mrtoad - ah, that's right, Media Create sales charts are reported weekly rather than monthly aren't they? In that case, yes. The Switch will probably become the #1 console in Japan by Fall.

The real issue is when you try to do a straight up comparison between consoles it fails the criteria. With the exception of the early consoles Nintendo tends to yank consoles earlier from the market than Sony does. Microsoft also pulls consoles rather soon. You can argue that the reason is popularity but there are so many other factors such as maturity of the market, development times and more.

Current Units sold of each console in Japan according to Famitsu
Switch: 8,125,637
PS4 8,077,757

Oh, wait!
Already surpassed?!

Depending on your gaming tastes this is either really good news or really bad news.

Get ready for a strong influx of otome, dungeon rpg, fighting, shump, and visual novel games.

@Magician
Otome games?
Like Free Iwatobi or Kuroko no Basuke or Uta no Prince or Prince of Tennis?

Otome, romance simulators targeted towards female gamers. Conversely, bishojo games for male gamers. We're going to get a lot of them. All you have to do is look at the catalogue of PS Vita games to get a fair glimpse of what's coming to the Switch over the next few years.

Let's all admit it only took 2+ of sales to beat the vetern ps4. That to any developers signals whom's strategy is the smart move and it didn't require uber power to do so.