Switch Reignites Video Game Console Market In Japan After 10-Year Slump

I guess you could say the situation has Switched around.

Yet big Developers still hesitate to put their games on the Switch...

But the sales are slowing down! Nintendo stocks are down! This is dooooom!

@Paraka Just wait until the new Pokemon and Smash Bros drops before Christmas, you will have parents lining up to buy one for their kids.

@CCore28 I'm very willing to bet that the casual consumer doesn't care much. It's really only people without Wii Us (like most of us here) that have a bit of a drought. If you didn't have a Wii U, all the ports to the system are effectively new games with some minor enhancements.

And even then, when you have a big enough game collection, just go back and replay a game in your collection.

10 years ago after iPhone came out, console was on the decline in Japan. Nintendo's strategy this time was to use mobile phone technology disguised as a console.

@EvilLucario yeah that pretty much me i skipped Wiiu so being able to play Bayonetta 2 and tropical freeze is great. I hope they port Xenoblade chronicles x.

@Rika_Yoshitake because big developers mostly care about the West. Why Sony gets all their support with barely 6million consoles in Japan.

Maybe that will change a bit now.

The US does 3.2 billion just in December 🙄

The Switch. Changing the world since 2017.

@Agramonte Care to give us the numbers for the rest of the year so we can compare markets more accurately, or are you just going to provide as little context as possible in the hopes that everyone accepts your reasoning unthinkingly?

Also, 3.5 billion dollars is a ton of money that's worth any publisher's attention, even if it isn't from the largest market out there.

@Rika_Yoshitake If anything, the Switch should at least get plenty of JAPANESE support, since that's where it's definitely lighting things up, and things are alright-I just want to see Square and Capcom dive in further. Western Devs are probably a mix of concern over previous issues with Nintendo consoles, working with a different infrastructure (and not just power; do you think it's a coincidence that XBox and PS4 are constantly mimicking PC's? I'd argue at least a bit of laziness) and wondering if their games will be profitable, which ties into the reasonable concern of port costs.

As for the article, if Nintendo's 20 prophecy of being NintenDOOMed comes through, they can always boast domination in the East, and mastery over the peak of portable gaming (sorry smart phones)

Nice to know Nintendo is finally getting some credit. But I am sure all the "Nintendoomed" people are as confused as I am about the success of mobile games...

I simply do not understand how the smartphone game industry is so popular. Overwhelmingly shovelware and low quality games, endless clones that are little more than reskins, and chalk full of ads, micro transactions, and other trash.

@Heavyarms55 My assumption is a combination of simplicity, convenience and the image of instantaneous rewards when in reality an attempt to entice additional monetisation.

People want to be entertained but in many cases just in small bits during parts of the day. They also loke the convenience of being able to use a device they already oen (and feel they need) over a fully optional one dedicated to gaming.

The ability of obtain mobile games for free will entice them to try them out. Many mobile games are designed to be psychologically manipulative by giving players early instantaneous rewards to develop a sense of investment. Despite limited gameplay, users feel they are achieving something and if they manage to get friends involved a sense of competition. As they become more invested, they start to develop impatience once the game starts raising barriers to slow progress and puts greater reliance on the less common currencies in the game. Thats when microtransactions come in and the Dolphins and Whales start breaking the surface.

The absolute saddest thing to hear is that mobile gaming is 3x as big as console gaming. Sad, disturbing, and just right down awful.

@FX102A I suppose I estimate people's desire for quality entertainment too highly.

Anyway, could you explain the dolphin and whale analogy? That flew right over my head. lol

This Switch console was created for Japan the fact it is also selling good around the world is just another plus.
The mobile gaming I dont get at all, I have all but quit playing and downloading games on my phone I hate touch screen game controls and pay to win and pay to play .

@EvilLucario

Nice to hear.

Looking at the numbers of the mobile market over there, it makes perfect sense why they're doing the Pokemon Let's Go games. Whether you like it or not.

@MaSSiVeRiCaN Couldn't agree more. But alas, people like being able to just open up their phone game, play 5 minutes, and when they can't progress anymore they just fork over half their monthly salary and become the God King of All Realms and feel good about it. That's roughly how it is in all games I've played on mobile devices, though there's one I'm sticking with because it's cruel to whales (Every form of "advantage" they can get is complete RNG so they could fork over a few thousand euros and only be guaranteed 1 rare item - the games' premium safetynet system is godawful)

Gotta say though, hoping this situation reverses. The mobile gaming market needs to decline severely.

@Heavyarms55 a mobile game could have 100 million downloads, but not everyone will be spending much money, if any.... there will be a small number though that DO spend money, big money, regularly, and those are the whales.

@Blizzia your being disingenuous, you make it appear that:

1. All those who play games on their phones pay huge amount in micro transactions;

2. That the only games on mobile are free to play, micro transaction, rng games;

The only thing you said that was not a stupid assumption was that people want to play with their phones.

@Nincompoop hey, not true... They used tablet technology ;p.

@MaSSiVeRiCaN my thoughts exactly.

No wonder Nintendo wanted in on all those scrumptious mobile profits.

@diwdiws To be fair...

1. The F2P model is built on whales, who pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars into the game. Any "dolphins" who decide to pay 5 bucks here and there also help the bottom line. So you're technically right, not everyone pays a lot. But the games are usually built around those that do.

2. The vast majority of them are, and the monetization is often more egregious than in the console and PC gaming spheres. Mostly because PC and console gamers cause more fuss about it. The same kind of loot box mechanics that are caused a legal fuss in Battlefront 2 are already fairly common in the mobile games.

@diwdiws

1. The majority pay a lot of money for virtual items in those games. That is fact. The games are built upon f2p with microtransactions (nearly all games - I am aware that some aren't built like this)

2. Again, VAST majority. You literally cannot prove me wrong. All it takes is going onto the apple store or google play store and it's plain as day.

Don't be a moron. Assumptions are for uneducated people. This is what we call an educated guess. As in I actually know what the heck I'm talking about.

@Heavyarms55 Dolphins and Whales are basically the users of mobile games who contribute the overwhelming majority of income to publishers through microtransactions. The majority of users probably never pay up or do so in extremely limited amounts. Dolphins are those who will make regular payments whilst Whales are those who pay real big money (going into 4 or 5 figures). In the Mobile Games industry these terms are rather dubiously thrown around as the primary “targets” for mobile game developers / publishers. Almost equivalent to a casino trying to rake in gambling addicts. Basically they see you as potential sea creatures with fat wallets that are easy to open.

Go spend some time in Japan. A lot of people spend a lot of time on trains. Virtually everyone in a train is on a phone. And many of those people are playing games.

I'm surprised mobiles aren't 90% of the total revenue market...

@FX102A That's news to me. Thanks for explaining it.

... and did you say 5 figures?! There are people who'd spend more than 10,000 dollars(or pounds/Euros whatever) on a mobile game... or ANY game?!

@MartyFlanMJFan I suppose if 1% of 100 million people spend 3-5 dollars on a mobile game, that's still a pretty significant amount of cash.

@Blizzia majority pays for virtual items are a fact? Basis please

Since you know, you actually know what the heck your talking about

@diwdiws I'm honestly baffled I even have to tell you this, but... Look at the numbers in this very article mate. I don't even need to try to give you any basis for it, it's literally... EVERYWHERE. A quick google will let you know just how insanely much these microtransactions bring in, and how they stop at nothing to entice people into buying just a little more and just a little more every now and then... Hoping to exploit some psychological weakness.

Even just a tiny purchase for a few bucks by a few of the randoms who try the game for a week and want a little fun "boost" rakes in TONS of money when several thousands do it.

@Heavyarms55 that's exactly it mate.

The thing that seems odd about this number is, Switch hasn't outsold 3DS. Are we counting "console" and excluding 3DS? Relating to Switch that's not really fair.

@Andrew5678 Most of the "big publishers" were only PC publishers, or at least primarily PC publishers in the 90's and early '00s. The release of the XBox as basically "console bridge to PCs" is what brought them into the console race, and the success of the 360 is what made them standard. Those companies didn't have half the influence in console they do now back then (except EA), PC is what their designs were entirely based around. It's really Sony, chasing after Microsoft's upset of them that made them follow the same publisher demands, and relented to just make consoles into PCs.

@NEStalgia I checked the source article, and it directly references the DS Lite as being a part of when the Japanese market peaked, and in comparison to the DS line, the 3DS didn't sell as well overall. If we go by pacing of how the system sells, than the Switch supposedly having a higher average of sales through the months would show more demand and indicate a more robust market. I can't say for certain if the 3DS is being shoved aside again, but it doesn't seem as likely in this case.

Ah, so the true culprit of the rectangular style of modern consoles is revealed! It makes sense, the way exclusives worked in the early Playstation days, I get the impression that Devs had to be courted really well since they didn't have the resources for multiple avenues of gaming, making them exclusive to systems by default. I don't mind them trying to grab as many games from PC as possible, but consoles aren't PC's. They can't match up in specs or customization, so the best ways they can match up is with exclusives, unique play styles (like being on the go), or providing unique experiences like local multiplayer, which isn't as easy to have with PC's. Hopefully there's a shift away from this style, otherwise consumers will be choosing between the same two boxes with different logos

@Andrew5678 Anything covering Nintendo sales, especially with handhelds in the mix it all gets so confusing! Any time these articles start referencing the DS, and especially in a Japanese context, it's hard to figure out how to look at it. Half the sales of that were for productivity/novelty apps in an era before smartphones, not really as gaming devices so it peaked in part because people were buying the closest thing to a smartphone, demonstrating a need for smartphones, before the real thing existed in a meaningful context...DS was such a success of hardware sales, but yet didn't necessarily reflect a demand for gaming specifically (where 3DS did.) It's always hard to figure out if that is important data or just skews the metrics to include. 3DS on the other hand really ought to be included as there was no culture jump involved, it was bought purely as a console.

But especially Japan, 3DS sold well....but not in the first year...it was a very slow first year, or first 6 months, so if we're comparing averages it's one thing, if they're doing life-to-date (I haven't checked the source article) Switch probably looks better against 3DS than it really is. Compared to DS, 3DS sales look kind of poor. Compared to PS4 sales, great on its own, 3DS sales look amazing! Omitting it would really skew numbers of Japanese gamers (heck, as a day one PS4 and WiiU owner, my 3DS was my primary console for years. It had more games I wanted to play than the others.)

At least consoles aren't beige!

....anymore...
(ugh they really need image scaling for images!)

But yeah, XBox's whole purpose was to basically drag PC gaming over to the console space (there was that infamous E3 where they were demoing the superpower X-BOX, and it turned out to not be a console but an empty box with cables running to a dual Xeon NT4 box under the table.... X-BOX was built mostly with off the shelf PC parts, and the whole trajectory of it was (intentionally) to bring the PC gaming space into the console space to rival Sony. Only after the early success of X360 did Sony reverse course and start making PS3 more like a 360. And with PS4 they just asked publishers "what do you want PS4 to be" more or less, and when they were told "as much like a PC as possible" they just made another PC box.....now console = PC, PC = console. Little difference other than locked ecosystems (XBox One is literally a Win10 Media Center (RIP) PC with custom hardware.... )

Sadly I don't think that shift will change, but intensify. Ubisoft, EA, 2k, etc, don't want to bother with consoles anymore. They want one target, PC, and ultimately thy'd rather just have a streaming sub with no hardware at all other than datacenter builds. We're stuck with console = PC forever (or gaming = service if publishers get their way....even though it's a physical impossibility on the internet), with Nintendo being the standout still making consoles. Even if they're also going commodity with nVidia builds....

I see XBox and Surface as two sides of the same coin. Standardized Microsoft Windows boxes suited to a particular task, but still a PC no matter how you look at it. (And Sony will just copy them. Or copy Nintendo. But probably copy Microsoft. )

@NEStalgia Jeez, I just thought it was down to snobbishness, but it's more down to no one setting a standard for what handhelds count as. Just label them as console, and split hairs after estimating sales. What, are the guys obsessed with high specs on the PS and XBox afraid it'll be unfair to the 3DS when the PS4, hyped as having the most AMAZING console sales of all time barely scraped past it, and still has 30 million to go until it it reaches the Wii?

Salt aside, there is a general skew when it comes to the DS apparently having phone apps before they existed. No way to tell where it starts with applications and ends with gaming. If we're going for long-term sales though, I think the comparison hold water. Also, Switch being a hybrid, is probably the first time something that has the general capabilities of a home console has sold this well in Japan, at least recently with Japan's encouragement to be as mobile as possible. That would help with the reputation.

Well, I can't say I'm too happy with that happening. We're getting closer and closer to console power meaning nothing when the weakest of them is the Switch, which can make games look and run great in a ton of different ways. Consoles can't be customized as thoroughly as PC's, and multiple peripherals are pretty much a death sentence for them. XBox and PS are going to be even more interchangeable, being less independent systems, and more extra avenues of revenues to the big 3rd parties running the show, who are salivating at any fad that can earn a few extra bucks-including the longstanding tradition of trading in good will for short term gains.

So yeah, I can't see many benefits, and I'm hopeful this game plan is shifted away from before people realize you can get actual gaming PC's instead of imitators-possibly even cheaper with Steam sales if they want.

@Heavyarms55 Oh it happens. Many mobile games (and now even AAA games) are designed to be addictive in nature and if they latch on to the “right” people they will pump insane amounts. Eurogamer has an article on someone who discovered he spent £10,000-£17,000 over 2 years on FIFA Points and plenty of other stories are available online.

@FX102A how does one discover that they spent that much money? They must be dangerously oblivious.