Sales Data For 2017 Reveals Nintendo Is Killing It In Japan

Nintendo are cleaning up. If Wii U production hadn't ceased it would have beaten XB1 to 5th place. It would have been nice too to see a BOTW Wii U console bundle as a final and fitting send-off.

Also, here's the Top 25 Switch eShop Downloads in Japan. This list is since launch.

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/software/feature/switch-ranking.html

I won't spoil it. Number 1 may be somewhat of a surprise but when you think of its quality and price, it's a good choice.

Nintendo's office Christmas party can afford some champagne this year.

Those woefully absent third party titles will begin trickling through in the coming year too.

They can keep CoD though.

lol. I remember sony saying something like "we are not worried about the switch, its in a different market" hahahaha

@retribution Now it's running up their front lawn

Switch will bury Xbox One for sure.

Fascinating numbers. It's interesting to see how much of a percentage each system sold in Japan compares to the rest of the world. Japan has a third of all 3DS owners, just less than half of Vita owners, perhaps a quarter of Switch owners and less than ten percent of PS4 owners.

Considering MHXX is the best selling software, it makes Capcom's decision not to port MH World to the Switch even more baffling. Here's hoping there will be dedicated Switch MH exclusive.

Weird...
Why some people still like xbox 1, the machine that requires 100% Online connection to TURN ON and PLAY the machine (that means NO Online Connection = Unable to play on Offline Mode) & we have to be Forced to use it frequently or the machine will be Bricked if not being used for one month ?
For me, that requirements are Big NO NO to play in Offline mode.
I don't understand their logic for xbox 1...

And beside, xbox1 still has Partial backward compatible with xbox360 & xbox. Meh...!

@retribution Charts and markets are two different things.
Just because the Switch has come in at the top of the chart does not mean it's a threat to Sony... the PS4 has continued to sell well since the Switch's release... it's market has hardly been affected, suggesting that the Switch is in a different market, just as they said.

Congrats for the big N! Will be interesting to see the holiday sales.

@retribution did you even look at PS4 sales? It's only a little behind Switch, and the console is in what, it's third/fourth year? Sony have absolutely nothing to worry about!

@SLIGEACH_EIRE ...You know, you have a valid point. It would not have cost them that much to do either. Perhaps they decided it was not worth it? But even then they at least could have done a Switch bundle for the game...

@Anti-Matter no...you're wrong. You only need online connection to play online games, not every game.

@Mogster @Anti-Matter Fortunatly that isn't the case. It was originally when the Xbox One was first announced, but they backtracked on that when they received major backlash for it.

@Anti-Matter not true and you know it

@Anti-Matter Yeah, your information is four years outdated, but sure.

Also, if anything has been admirable this generation, it's Microsoft enabling backwards compatibility at no extra price. One console to play most of the manufacturer's titles on? Now that's impressive.

We haven't seen anything on that scale since the first generation of PS3's.

@Mogster
Ah... I see.
Basically still like xbox360 ?
Pardon of my lack of updated information about xbox 1.

Little more than one million total sales in 3-4 months for Switch. Certainly not in track to match 23 million total sales of 3ds. Need a price reduction soon.

@UK-Nintendo
I got updated confirmation just now.
I see...

@Akropolon
I had checked the list of backward compatible of xbox360 & xbox titles and None of them are DDR Ultramix series (1 until 4), The Sims Bustin' Out, DDR Universe series 1 - 3, Little League World series 2010, The Sims 3, The Sims 3 Pets, Dance Evolution (with Kinect).

Kinda bummer can't play those games on xbox1.

@dimi If the reports can be believed, Nintendo will want to resolve supply issues before even contemplating a price drop.

@electrolite77
Sorry.
I think I haven't got updated information about xbox1.

Well half of them are all children. They all want one of course. There you go

I think it's a big mistake for Capcom to not bring MHW to the Switch. XX on 3DS was the best selling title and the first PS4 title is only on 6th place.

@manu0
I think Capcom will get a Bad Karma for not release Monster Hunter World on Switch.
You reap what you sow...

Nintendo killed it the first 6 months with supply issues. The next 6 months are going to be amazing. My wife is wanting her own Switch now, so Nintendo's dream of every gamer in my household having a Switch will soon come to pass, bringing us to 3 Switches. Not too surprising though, between us we own 3 3DS, a 3DSXL, and a New 3DSXL.

@Anti-Matter complete B.S.

@Anti-Matter Well, yeah, but it's software emulation, so Microsoft has to tackle every. single. individual. game. That's a lot of work and the games you mentioned are pretty niche/outdated.

But hey, new Xbox and Xbox 360 games are added to the BC list all the time. As opposed to, you know, Nintendo's Virtual Console. Or the PS4 where you can only play PS3 games by streaming them (via a paid subscription) and PS1/PS2 games by rebuying them.

@Akropolon "Also, if anything has been admirable this generation, it's Microsoft enabling backwards compatibility at no extra price. One console to play most of the manufacturer's titles on? Now that's impressive."

No extra price? I'm pretty sure the £499 pricing speaks for itself.

@dimi Do they really need to reduce the price, or do they need to make more units? The system sells out immediately when stores are stocked. It has nothing to do with the high price of the system. The lower sales figures are entirely the result of Nintendo's inability to keep up with demand.

@dimi Switch does not need a price cut. It's incredibly popular right now and since it's launched, it's been one of this year's most coveted gadgets - as evidenced by its current sales. A price cut, when the console is only 4 months old and doing so well, would ruin profits.

You... You should probably stay out of all business affairs. Your short-sighted opinion (if taken seriously) could cost a company thousands. Just saying.

I went to Walmart yesterday and they had 2 switches in the display case. I asked the electronics employee if they had more in the back and she said she believed so. I called the Target down the road and they said they have some in the back just not in the display case.

@ThatNyteDaez What in God's name are you referring to? Xbox 360 backwards compatibility is available on every Xbox One, Xbox backwards compatibility will be too.

Microsoft really need to rethink their approach to the Japanese market. I wonder if they'll even bother releasing the X over there.

This goes to show that the Japanese audience doesn't care about specs or power. As long as the product is enjoyable, the money will roll in.

@Arcamenel I call two of my local Walmart and Target the other day about the Switch too. All of them said they had like five in the back so I thought I could score one for my nephew. Fortunately by the time I got there they're gone. Either the store employee lied to me or some early birds got them before I do.

@retro_player_22 Maybe someone was listening in on your phone call?

Is the portability the reason why vita is doing stronger than PS4 is out there? I understand it was out longer but that's pretty interesting that it has sold better over all.

Great! But what about NA sales? Did they give it out yet? I'd like to see those too, but on a bigger note if possible please try to get the worldwide sales too...

@SLIGEACH_EIRE they may be killing it, but Japan is such an insignificant chunk of the pie in comparison to the Western markets. For instance, take a look at how success Microsoft has been in the industry since 2001 even though they are the laughing stock of Japan.

Furthermore, I'd argue that Nintendo's continued pwnage of the Japanese market has only allowed them to continue their baffling quirky ways in the views of the Western market and adding to the perception of them merely being "the other guy" or second console to a "real" console.

Either way, my views on this aren't exactly accepted around these parts. No matter, because it doesn't make them any less accurate.

I haven't seen a single Nintendo Switch since launch. I have seen stores put random items in the Switch cases multiple times though... Like bags of chips and stuff...

@gatorboi352
Your comment implies Japan is the only region where the Switch has been selling, when in reality, sales are a great deal higher in North America and Europe than in Nintendo's homeland.

Either way, Nintendo is not going to be interested in making traditional hardware or software ained specifically at the traditional western gaming market no matter how well their hardware sells in Japan. 87% of all Wii sales came from outside Japan, and that didnt stop Nintendo from being any less Japanese.

Wow. Switch has sold in 4 months, with EXTREME supply shortages, more than 1/5 of what PS4 has sold in 3.5 years (and more than 12x as much as XBO has sold total.)

That's pretty darn impressive despite the overall low numbers in Japan. Such a shame the original home of console gaming has been reduced to consoles as a tiny niche of the population.

@gatorboi352 I wouldn't call what Microsoft is doing with XBox a "success." Debt and other things aside, their total sales are half of their main competitor and they aren't making money, and their market is limited to primarily 3 countries. I'd seriously consider a different measuring stick of success than that.

If you really consider Nintendo to be "the other guy" and a poor seller, consider XBox's sales are also about half Nintendo's. Aside the fact that Nintendo made money and XBox lost money. I get it. you like XBox. I have 2 360s. I've had my fun with XBox. One is providing value in some places PS4 isn't, too. It's become consumer friendly out of necessity, so it's a nice little space if you like what they have. But lets not pretend it's terribly successful

Playstation is tremendously successful however, thus why it's the normal comparison made. But as for a "real" western console, I suspect that applies mainly to people born in a certain time period when Playstation was all the rage, or people born when Wii was all the rage. Anyone older than the playstation era was already trained that "quirky Nintendo type games" are "gaming". Anyone just entering the industry is looking at or familiar with mobile first most likely. That's a mindset that reflects a particular snapshot of time more than anything else. Nintendo's task (that the WiiU failed) was to create a different mindset for those that don't already have it. Which they're doing with their handling of Switch so far.

Nintendo systems cleaning house thanks to the 3DS. I wonder if they will be able to secure more parts for the Switch to increase production levels again. Right now PS4 is outselling the Switch for the past couple of weeks.

I'm a little shocked XB1 isnt over 100K total sales in Japan. I know it has struggled but I still figured it would be higher then that.

Nintendo has dominated this list for a while. Hopefully the Switch continues to perform well so we get a lot of unique games like the 3DS has

Wow, the Vita still has more units shifted than PS4. Also about a third of entire 3ds units sold are in Japan. You can see the strength of the handheld in that market. Switch will likely thrive.

@MsgBoardGamer It's even worse than that. They've lost money. A LOT of money. All their consoles (maybe not the current One) are sold at a huge subsidy. They basically paid everyone to take the OG XBox. They had huge other expenses involved in the release. They were sitting in a MASSIVE debt hole, but deemed it worthwhile because the purpose of "Project DirectX Box" was to solidify the DirectX API and get Windows in the living room. So they treated it like a Windows marketing expense.... a drop in the bucket. X360, they also paid people to take it under subsidy, but the games actually sold and netted a good return. But they blew a lot of the return on the RRoD repairs, and then the bad launch of the One squandered the brand's good faith. They still haven't recovered the debt of the OG XBox. They pad the red lines with Android royalties to keep it black. It's ugly. The investors hate the division and keep pushing to oust it.

Thus I always find it funny when people talk about Nintendo as being the last choice behind the other two. In perception, maybe, but not in the numbers that matter. Behind Playstation? Sure, everyone has been behind Playstation since '96. But If any company is #3, it's Xbox, not Nintendo.

The really funny part is Phil Spencer himself has had to try to drum that reality into the media's heads on more than one occasion, defending the WiiU sales, even. And still its ignored. It's kind of sad watching the brand president up there basically saying "no, really, guys...we're last place....honest...you have to believe me!"

I like Phil, and I like having competition for Sony. I don't like the thought of a gaming monopoly. But Sony's up to, what, 60+M PS4s (and growing fast) and 15M Vitas, Nintendo's up to 60+M 3DS's, 12M WiiUs, and est. 5M Switches (selling out as fast as supplied), and XBox is up to, est/leaked/rumored, 37M Ones (they don't report numbers anymore....)

Sure next to WiiU and Vita it's a success...So it's got that!

But brand PERCEPTION in the US, Canada, and UK would make it seem like it's a tremendous success, because in those 3 locations is where nearly all 37M come from so it occupies a higher density there than it's industry reality would permit.

But people here said it was doom cause no Call of Duty.

@Jessica286 They're always doomed.

Don't know where Nintendo life got this garbage info but mediacreate has vita over 200 thousand so far this year and they are very reliable. Not sure about other hardware numbers, I didn't check them out, just vita ones cause I knew something was wrong, plus lifetime sales was also wrong it's 5.650 million ish, something tells me the rest is also wrong, hardware is probably more for all of it. From what I can see NL missed a 0 of that 26 at the end and that would put it in-line with media create sales

@Equinox
I know you follow mediacreate charts on this site, and you don't get any more reliable than them, so you must also know those vita numbers are wrong, way wrong. Mediacreate/famitsu has vita sales so far this year in Japan over 210 thousand, vita sold 75 thousand the first week of January then 43 thousand week after, then came the big drop to 12 thousand then it evened out for a short while at 7 thousand ish. Then switch came and numbers dropped to 5 thousand for a few weeks then down to 4 thousand a week for past few months. Yes it lost sales to switch but it was already on a decline thanks to 3ds but it's market share in Japan is good for a niche handheld, that's basically what it's become. Worldwide it's king of Japanese niche games that are constantly been localised for it, that's why ppl still buy it worldwide and for that reason only even though you have to buy it on amazon or eBay over here apart from independent shops like the one near me where you can still buy it. I like my Vita but also like my Nintendo hardware I own . Also the lifetime sales of vita in Japan is also wrong in this article, it's at 5.650 million according to mediacreate. I do believe switch will take Japanese software from vita slowly then it will build up but not for a few years yet, there are to many games been released fir it this year and next for switch to have that impact on it, also ps4 will have a impact on it, it's already getting a load of niche games for it that aren't coming to vita. Sorry guy it seems like I am following you around today, but I have to answer comments that are misinformed.

The PS4 has been out for just under three and a half years in Japan and has sold a little under 5 million. The Switch has been out for four months and has sold over a million. They're some incredible figures. The Switch will almost certainly overtake the PS4 in Japan.

@Mogster true this is only japan data, don't worry i wasn't trying to bad mouth sony, i have a ps4pro and love that too.

@westman98 didn't stop nintendo from being Japanese?? how do you explain the wii u?

@NEStalgia the xbox brand has surpassed the nintendo brand almost every year in 2/3rds of the market, since entering the market. I'd call that a success.

And we won't even get into PlayStation, which you've already alluded to.

Switch is a hit. This is great for Nintendo. But Nintendo's biggest follies seem to come right after their biggest successes. They cannot have a repeat of the Wii complacency.

@gatorboi352
"Nintendo is not going to be interested in making traditional hardware or software ained specifically at the traditional western gaming market no matter how well their hardware sells in Japan."

And no, the Xbox brand is not bigger than the Nintendo brand in 2/3rds of the market. The UK? Definitely. The US? Yeah, probably, though the Xbox One is selling kinda slow this year thus far. Everywhere else? Not even close.

Xbox Defence Force™ inna da house...

@gatorboi352 Beaten to the punch by @WiltonRoots! For being the guy that likes to call people the NDF, you're definitely going full XDF here!

The X360 years showed the most success for Microsoft, but it was up against the Wii and DS for much of it's core years. The big news was that it was ahead of Playstation (or rather that Playstation was at the bottom!) The OG Xbox was very short lived. It sold OK, but it was a loss leader through and through. And the One is still resting at roughly half the NWS+WiiU+3DS numbers. I'm not sure where the "surpassed the Nintendo brand" part comes from. If we looked at US, UK, or CA specific numbers, which I haven't done, that may be true, specifically, I'm not sure of 3DS's domestic numbers, I've only followed it's total numbers. Same with Playstation. I do know supposedly greater than half of XBox sales are just NA+UK. Meaning even if the 37M leaked figure for One sales is true (which is uncertain, it was leaked from an internal document at MS France, but that number is significantly higher than other analysts and business partners have estimated..), but even if we're generous and assume it's true, that means about 18-19M of those were just NA+UK, divided over the last 3.5 years, or about 10.5M/yr worldwide, 6M or more just in those territories per year. Certainly not bad numbers, but very concentrated in a portion of the market, and broadly below Nintendo's combined hardware numbers though admittedly in somewhat different product categories.

NoA is a strong territory for 3DS, but I don't know if specifically in the US which one topped the other. XBox could certainly be ahead in numbers here, but both companies are interested in their worldwide total sales more than their regional sales, though home territory is clearly important to both as well.

@thesilverbrick i hope thats the only issue. I want Switch to succeed.

@NEStalgia "The OG Xbox was very short lived. It sold OK, but it was a loss leader through and through."

It sold better than Nintendo's offering at the time, and that was my point. Also, when the Wii was ripping off a cool 100 million sales, the 360 was right behind it with over 80 million sales.

People like to reference how Sony and MS lose money on their consoles, like it matters or something. They aren't a small, single focused business like Nintendo who cannot afford losses on hardware.

Make no mistake about it, the successes of Sony and MS in the gaming industry has led directly to what Nintendo has become today.

They entered the ring, established dominance by offering what home console gamers wanted (and what Nintendo wasn't giving them) and took the belt away from Nintendo. They now trade blows every gen on who owns the belt between the two of them, sure. But Nintendo's hand was forced into the Wii, and Wii U... and now the Switch. Soon, 3DS line will be phased out, and Nintendo will be a hybrid console/smartphone kind of deal while traditional home console/pseudo PC market will be Sony/MS/PC. They all offer services, not draconian software/hardware ties and clunky voice chat options and no cloud saves. Services. That is the name of the game.

@gatorboi352 Not exactly
OG XBox: 24M, GCN: 22M, GBA: 80.5M, PSP: 80M, PS2: 155M,
Nintendo gaming hardware sales during that generation: 102.5M
Playstation gaming hardware sales during that generation: 235M
XBox gaming hardware sales during that generation: 24M.
(*PSP and PS2 lifetime is slightly inflated as they were on sale longer after their replacements arrived than the others.)

OG XBox was a sales disaster overall.....HOWEVER, it's not a knock, it was never MEANT to be a success. It was a stepping stone designed as a loss leader and almost a marketing platform to launch the 360, and was only on shelves for a short duration compared to the others, so the numbers are not a 1:1 difference. It served its purpose, but cost WAAAY too much money to do it.

Losing money on consoles is irrelevant if that initial loss is an investment into long term success. Nobody does business to lose money in any division unless the losses in one are leading to gains that eclipse the loss in another. Sony subsidized the PS1 and PS2, but it lead to tremendous gains in software sales that eclipsed it, and secured their optical media formats in far bigger industries than gaming. That was an expense in the hundreds of millions that led to rewards in the billions. PS3 they took a loss and didn't recover until late in the cycle, which directly lead to them making the PS4 what it was to specifically NOT take a major loss at a time when they could not afford it. It was not sold at subsidy (and the hardware reflects that.)

OG XBox was massively subsidized but lead to no other gains. X360 was subsidized, and lead to no other gains. X1 is likely not subsidized, much like PS4 (but they haven't said whether it is or not), but they're still financially behind as a division that's not really contributing much to the parent company (in fact is leeching from.)

No argument about Sony's success. Their success is TREMENDOUS. And they have reshaped the industry. MS managed to reshape the industry early on through their egregious debt spending, and they did so not for the direct benefit of XBox but for the direct benefit of Windows. That justified the expense at the time, and rightly so from their view. However, since that time the XBox division rally nets no reward for the company, either through direct earnings, nor through acting as a halo (pun not intended) to other Microsoft brands. It's not doing for MS what it did for Sony.

Sony leveraged their optical platforms and their film & music distribution expertise (and their deep pockets) to shape a NEW market of gaming outside what Nintendo, Sega, and Atari had been doing. It wasn't a replacement market, it was a secondary market. MS tried to hybridize the two, capitalizing on their Windows existing partnerships, trying to push into Sony's territory, but also adopting Sega's old territory. They've mostly failed to push into Sony's territory, mostly failed to adopt Sega's old territory, but did force Sony to adopt their territory. They've been more successful at exerting influence than leveraging gains. But that influence really came and went by mid-way through the X360. They are becoming their own Nintendo, forced to seek their own niches. Though I'd say that's not necessarily a bad thing as a gamer. In fact it might be a great thing.

I agree that Nintendo's hand was forced into the Wii, to a degree, mostly by Sony howerver (GCN launced before XBox, recall, and Sega was in free fall at the time. It was Nintendo vs. Sony only at that time. And faced with the choice of going head to head against a company they couldn't outspend, who just downed their prior biggest competitor, they just flipped the table and walked out.)

However every discussion of Nintendo compares home consoles. Home consoles stopped being Nintendo's primary market in 1989. The NES was the first and last where it was their primary product. Handhelds have been their primary product for the last 28 years. Switch finally realizes the reality/dream that there's no need for those two devices to remain separate now that tech has caught up. The fact that it's landing in the mobile age is a boon.

Interesting you'd use the phrase "traditional home console/pseudo PC". That's a really great description. Despite "Family Computer" being the name, I don't think Nintendo really had much interest in the pseudo-PC thing, ever. The Famicom with it's disk drive in Japan veered that way a bit. The N64DD did, but ultimately the kinds of games they produced even in the "golden age" was something that's very well suited to a portable device. It always was. We didn't play on a TV back then because we wanted to. We did because we had to, that's where the game was. We also liked arcades where the game was somewhere else. If I could have put my NES on a 6" screen and taken it out any time, I'd have probably rarely used the TV back then. I'm sure the same goes for a lot of folks. The "traditional console" that you describe is something crafted largely by Sony alone, and merged later with the actual PC world thanks to Microsoft. But it's a different market...those are two separate things. Sony merging it with film was smart. It makes gaming more mainstream and approachable rather than focusing on dedicated gamers. Microsoft mostly just took what was the OCD factors of PC elite and made it mass market so fools with more money than tech knowledge could join in and spend. But neither are really showcasing the same kind of gameplay systems that fans of the earlier consoles would enjoy....nor is what they're offering an evolution of those gameplay models, but something entirely different.

Also interesting you would mention "services". Services is very explicitly the very thing I absolutely under no circumstances WANT. There are many others who don't want yet another "service", and yes, Microsoft is most aligning under "services" as that's their company profile in the Nadella era. I don't want Azure in my business, I don't want SQL Server as a cloud-only solution unless I buy a $100,000 Enterprise license. Oracle works just fine as a local server, thank you. and I don't want a game console as a service. There is a market for that, and that market is not me, or a variety of other people. And fortunately Nintendo is more than willing to serve that market. That said, is there anyone that still DOESN'T think cloud saves are coming with the paid SERVICE on Nintendo? I'd even pay for that. I did it on Sony. Until they jacked the prices up. I cancelled PS+ in a heartbeat after that price hike. I don't use the "free" games....they just want me to buy games for other people. No thanks.

Again (I always feel I have to clarify) I'm not anti-XBox. I'm glad they exist. And that X1X is so much nicer than the PS4 Pro. It's so tempting (but I play so few 3rd party games...even my PS4 collection is mostly Sony games... and between N and S exclusive I have more than I have time to play as it is!) And I love their controllers above all others. I'm just calling a spade a spade here. Sony is the undisputed mass market leader by miles, and both Nintendo and Microsoft are relegated to finding their niches and between the two, in raw numbers both financial and unit sales, Microsoft is definitely the one bringing up the rear.

Personally I'd love to see them settle into a REAL niche again. Forza and Halo? Really? That's not what made XBox appealing. Fable, and Mass Effect, and Jade Empire made XBox appealing. It used to have odd games you couldn't get elsewhere that were better than Sony's interactive movies and different from Nintendo's systems-based-gameplay. It was the legacy of Sega living on in XBox. They've since settled for 3rd party repetitive online experiences and stopped seeking new experiences. Under Microsoft's very business oriented umbrella, I don't believe they'll ever find their creativity again.

@NEStalgia thanks for the thoughts, well said.

1-2 Switch? Wow didn't see that coming