Switch Continues Its Hardware Dominance In Japanese Charts, Games Fill 16 Of Top 20 Spots

26,000 sales for a Major release title is quite poor

It's like the Wii/DS era all over again, weekly domination. I'm curious when Octopath will get that restock too, the numbers still seem really low.

Im amazed Splatoon 2 been in top 5 since release i guarantee it will sell over 3 million in japan.

Everybody in Japan wants to get their hands on a bottle of that Labo lacquer spray and it's useless if they don't also have a Switch. That's clearly the reason the system is selling so well over there.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/07/random_protect_your_nintendo_labo_kits_with_this_special_bottle_of_cardboard_coating_spray

@cfgk24 remasters rarely sell well in Japan. They all have a PS3 anyway

Nintendo Switch will take a Domination.
PS4 will going down.

Okami HD deserves to sell millions. It'll never happen but a man can dream ;(

If find it rather amusing that the release of the One X in Japan has split the Japanese Xbox market in half rather than add to it. The One used to sell around 80 on average each week as did the 360 before it. Now with the One X on the scene averaging around 50 sales per week the One is only shifting around 30.

Just goes to show how diminished the Japan market has become.

Basically outselling the PS4 2:1 for the last quarters and yet the Switch gets outsold by a million + worldwide.

It is all about the West. What Microsoft figured out also 🤔 Also, a of a slow week - The top 10 games sales barely add up to 190K - TOTAL.

I take it Octopath is still going through stock shortages in Japan?

And Kirby's still hanging in that top 20...

@Agramonte Interesting spin, you could also say how irrelevant Sony and Microsoft are in Japan, and it's not down to Microsoft not trying to crack the market...

You need to release new content to get the number one spot usually lol

Happy to see I am not the only one that recently purchased BoTW and SMO!! Well the first one has a couple of months in. But Mario is quite new to me and has few hours into it. Loving them!

Warioware may have had a meh debut but it’s second week sales had a much much lower %drop than most games do.

Etrian Odyssey X of course dropped hard due to a combination of stock issues and the series being bought mainly by a dedicated fan base.

Every Switch game but three(Octopath, Baseball and Taiko) up week on week. Nice +38% on Captain Toad.

So Octopath Traveler still had shortage issue. If only Square Enix was prepare.

@WiltonRoots Nothing to do with Spin - the numbers are right there. You saying SONY is irrelevant in japan yet still dominating total sales - simply proves my point.

Not 16 switch games. Only 13. Three 3ds games makes total games on nintendo consoles 16 though.

@Agramonte pretty bizarre and ethnocentric viewpoint. Admittedly this was a slow week, compared to some others in Japan, but it was a week. We usually get monthly sales for the u.s

190,000 games sold in a week isn’t exactly insignificant, and that’s just the top ten.

Edit: I believe that Japan is the second biggest console market, after the U.S. I double checked, In terms of revenue, it’s the third biggest market in the world behind China and the U.S. though that includes mobile gaming. Why on earth would you believe the second or third biggest single market was irrelevant?

What are you talking about lol @agramonte

Meanwhile in the UK this week, Crash Bandicoot was number 1 in the overall chart again and in the individual formats the juggernaut that is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was number 1 for the second week in a row. Very impressive for Nintendo but UK chart is overall healthy for all 3 console makers which is great!

@Agramonte I dunno man for the last year or so the Japanese charts have looked like this...Sony might still be in front there but for how much longer, they've kind of dropped the ball in their home territory this time round.

@Agramonte Irrelevant is your conclusion.

I'm genuinely curious, does anybody have a clear-cut reason why Microsoft still even bothers selling the Xbox in Japan? Has any Xbox system EVER sold well over there for even a single week (outside of maybe the system's launch week)?

@luke88 Well, that was what I was getting at (slow week in general for games) at the tail end. I edited it to make that more clear. When a big release the market can do a million plus in a week. So not talking in general

@Agramonte not sure what you edited, I made an edit too. What you’ve written is rather odd, still, 😉

@WiltonRoots And nobody is disputing that. This chart shows it again - dominating the Japan market is not enough. Today you always need the West. It does not matter if you SONY, Nintendo or Microsoft.

Why you also seeing the "westernizing" of Japanese gaming iP.

@Agramonte Interesting how you spin those numbers (and throw in some casual racism) to fit your narrative, rather than thinking that just maybe they explain why Nintendo--which is a Japanese company, after all--focuses on its home market.

@Agramonte If we assume 50,000 switches sold per week is an average (my guess would be it's a slow week?), that amounts to 2,600,000 over a year, which is 13% of the 20,000,000 switches Nintendo hopes to sell this year. So irrelevant is a bit harsh. US is the biggest market, but Japan pulls its weight, too.

Splatoon 2 has been absolutely phenomenal in Japan. I expect that at some point in the coming weeks it'll hit #1 again.

Also, the performance of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is impressive too.

Can we get Fire Pro Wrestling: World on Switch, please? And I want Ring of Honor stars in it. That would be huge

@hiptanaka I would argue that it also goes beyond numbers. Japan is the spiritual home of video games.

@ieatdragonz It would have sold far better if there were a physical edition. A 10GB download is some serious real estate in the included memory of the Switch.

@hiptanaka And it is about 7Million of the 83 million PS4s. It is literally less than the VITA

If you "hiptanaka" build a videogame console today. You better off using marketing/development dollar to dominating the US/EU market before caring about the Japan one.

It does not matter if "hiptanaka" gets outsold 2:1 there - you still in the position to lead the global market. Where if the tables are turned - it will be harder. That is my point.

But yes, "irrelevant" is a bit much. I'll edit that.

Maybe Sega should reconsider and release Yakuza on Switch, it might do that much better!

I hope we hear about Fire Pro Wrestling coming to switch. The developer, Spike said they would love to put the game on Switch last year. It's a wrestling game that's super customizable and fun, sort of like the N64 and Gamecube THQ wrestling games which I sorely miss.

@Agramonte Looking at Japanese software sales it's also clear Japan has a very different buying habit than the West. In the west "the first two weeks are all that matter" and everyone is in on preorder launch day hype for major games. Sales in Japan are slower, longer, and steadier more times than not, adding up considerably over time. Clearly "need it on launch day!!1" instant gratification doesn't drive sales trajectory so much as buying a game when choosing to buy a game.

It's a declining market there, sure, or has been, but Switch is heavily revitalizing it after mobile really put a dent in it. Japan's still been going through "new toy" phase with smartphones, but, like here, it's starting to wane.

Splatoon 2's numbers are insane.

I'm both pleasantly surprised and slightly terrified that the scenario shown in the Switch reveal trailer could actually come to be, with hip young Splatoon players showing up team uniforms to greet the roaring masses.

@Agramonte It's interesting that you bundle the US and EU markets in your comment. I think the Switch has sold about as much in EU as in Japan. You could just as well have said "You're better off using marketing/development dollar to dominating the US/JP market before caring about the European one."

US is the biggest market, but they all count towards the total.

Edit: Being irrelevant in US would be worse than being irrelevant in Japan, but the best position is to be relevant in all regions, which seems to be the case for Switch.

@NEStalgia Oh 100%. And later the massive price drop 5 months later. It really is the big budget Hollywood movie mentality.

Yep... my comment more of a snap of a point in time. The Switch has already made a dent. I cant wait for Mobile to die out... they do not even try the "console quality" marketing nonsense anymore.

Remember when the press kept saying that nobody would need dedicated gaming devices anymore?... 3 years later the Switch is the fastest selling system and PS4 is at 83 million 😂

Regarding Japan not being a big market. People do realise it has only 1/3 of the population of the US, right?

@NEStalgia I wish markets in general would work towards trying to win the long-game rather than snatch up short term gains. Nintendo always seems to be a bit backwards in its way of thinking, but their way of selling something like LABO, with interest mainly being on steady long term sales, feels like a move I want more companies to take.

@thesilverbrick yep, an incredible shame! Though I’ll admit I gave in and imported it (should be here tomorrow) as it’s only 26€ (including shipping) on Amazon.co.jp..
I never imported a game before and I never thought I would, but for just 6€ more it’s more than worth it!

@clvr I didn’t realize there was a physical edition in Japan. Does it have an English language option? If so I’d consider importing it, as well.

@Tyranexx I still don't get how XBone could possibly fail quite so hard in Japan considering Sega was helping them get started. Then again, IIRC, Sega failed pretty darn hard in hardware in Japan, too.... maybe it's not so strange.

@Andrew5678 Absolutely. Honestly the modern mentality (from stocks to products) of short term over long term reeks of a broken system almost guaranteed to fail horribly and painfully. Massive instability is baked right in, and that means big rewards for those that play instability to their favor, but continuous swings tend to erode everything until breaking points. That's a new trend since the 80s....before that, everything in business was more about the long game.

@hiptanaka Tons of data group the EU/US as the "western market". When you hear that a Japanese publisher is "focusing on the west" that is what they mean. It is the combo that has worked for every large 3rd party in the west that see Japan as an afterthought.

Again, not a statement on if Japan is a market or not... or big or not. Just that right now you can be outsold almost 3:1 in Japan and have 2 games in the top 10 - and still dominate the global market.

That till looks like a photocopier.

Octopath Traveler is dead.

@thesilverbrick Yes, there is. Was going to respond to you but another commenter did it for me. It is called a "limited edition" but in reality only really adds a soundtrack. I do not believe they would be able to track it on the charts if it was digital only.

Honestly, wouldn't be surprised if a good amount of the numbers it did sell was from importing. I never got on that, probably should've. 10 GB digital is really huge.

And yes, it does support English. If you can find one, then you'd be golden.

@PanurgeJr
It's fine to disagree with someone, but to accuse someone of "racism" just because you disagree with them is rather pathetic. You've got some growing up to do.

@MichaelHarvey One could give the same admonition to someone who doesn't see the problem in dismissing a Japanese company for acting Japanese. I don't recall seeing any criticism of American companies for focusing on America.

@ieatdragonz That’s awesome. I’ll defintiey see if I can find a copy and import it. Thanks!

@SBandy nice comment

@PanurgeJr
Nintendo and Sony are MULTINATIONAL companies headquartered in Japan. They operate in many countries and employ staff all over the world. Their world customer base will have expectations that they will need to accommodate, otherwise they lose their market share and profit.
As I said, it isn't racism to expect a multinational company to cater for its largest market. This is business. You're overreacting as usual to score cheap points.

I bet they wish they'd released Yakuza on Switch now... maybe they'll rethink their current business plan.

@kopaka

It isn't dead it is severely understocked, everywhere.

Also already a million seller so already a success also.

@MartyFlanMJFan

Cheers dude!

It seems in Japan Splatoon is a beast which can not be fed.

Impressive seeing how much of a stranglehold the game still has over the Japanese market.

Also it's nice seeing Okami at number 11.

Okami launch sales on Switch were roughly the same as its launch sales on PS4.

Just noticed that Zelda Breath of the Wild is selling more than it did during this same week last year. For a single-player-only game franchise that was considered "irrelevant" just a few years ago, the rebound has been impressive to witness.

Silly Microsoft releasing Xbox 1 X in Japan when Xbox 1 sold poorly.

I don't know why people are making fun of Microsoft. The OG XOne model increased sales this week by 50%. That is some serious growth!

I'm always amazed by the amount of evergreen titles Nintendo has.

@MichaelHarvey this is not an one off incident. This casual racism is expressed by the same user week after week when there are reports about Japanese sales. It's also a well-hidden way to express fanboyism without being explicit, which is what he does just because facts don't correspond with his feelings

@Tyranexx It'll be interesting to see what the PS5 is - if it's another black slab stuck under your TV with mainly western games, then it might end up having similar success to the PS4 in Japan.

It might be a purely digital download device - having to wait whilst downloading and installing huge 4K games along with their obligatory patches sort of negates the whole aspect of plug and play which was the initial selling point of consoles in the first place. It will be intriguing to see how it plays out.

@WiltonRoots
"It might be a purely digital download device - having to wait whilst downloading and installing huge 4K games along with their obligatory patches sort of negates the whole aspect of plug and play which was the initial selling point of consoles in the first place. It will be intriguing to see how it plays out."

I will NEVER Consider PS5 Existences in my life by the time that machine will be released. No more Sony machines for me.
I can do BACKSTAB against Sony by purchasing Xbox 2 instead by any chance.

I read those stats often and Xbox numbers never fail to amuse me. I always know what's coming and it never gets old. Like a good ol dad joke

Edit: #69 ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

@Agramonte But Nintendo is doing far better than Microsoft in the West. Microsoft is pretty much only performing in North America.... Japan has an aging population, which is a big reason for the decline in console sales.

@Tyranexx For multiplat and digital honestly xbox gets it right a lot more than Sony. I'm not sure most Sony first party excites Japan much either. Sony is kind of backward looking like Nintendo, hardware and platform wise. Ns really just didn't know how to market Japan. Other than jrpgs they have the same games as Playstation and the only reason they lack those games is the same reason Nintendo often does: publisher perception. Is honestly nicer hardware, a nicer platform, just missing those Japanese games because the low install base chicken and egg.

@Anti-Matter "Purchasing Xbox 2 instead by any chance"

Now i truly HAVE seen everything. I should post a picture of the squadron of pigs flying past my window.

@MichaelHarvey I never keep score.

@thesilverbrick yep, I’ve read from several sources that it does! 👍🏻
Tomorrow should be the day, if so I’ll be sure to check it out and let you know ✌🏻

@clvr I’d appreciate your thoughts!

Looks like a rough week for everything other than Switch units sold. Game sales looking pretty poor.

I'm surprised Layton's Mystery Journey is on Switch:
[NSW] Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and The Millionaires’ Conspiracy DX (Level-5, 08/09/18) – 9,704 (New)
haha, I thought it was on 3DS

Yakuza barely outsold Splatoon 2. Which launched last year. Lol

8) Xbox One X – 43 (53)
9) Xbox One – 31 (21)

with sales that low you wonder why microsoft even bothers with the japanese market?

@thesilverbrick The game has arrived, and I can confirm it supports English! Not only that, you don’ even have to select it manually as it recognizes the console’s language!

@clvr That’s great news! I’ll be looking into importing it. Thanks!

@thesilverbrick you’re welcome, mate!