Japanese Charts: Smash Bros. Ultimate Has Already Outsold Pokémon And Zelda: Breath Of The Wild

Nintendo and Switch is really dominating in Japan at the moment!

Edit: The PS4 got a real sales boost as well. That’s great!

"Yep, Smash has sold more copies in Japan in less than a week than Breath of the Wild has managed since March 2017. Utter madness"

Honestly it's not all that crazy. Zelda titles just aren't as big in Japan, even though BotW has done well over there. Japan however loves Smash, so I think it's kinda a silly comparison. Still though, that's some mighty impressive numbers for Smash, I can't wait to see how well it does in the NA, so we can get the overall picture. Absolutely smashing indeed.

congratz Nintendo on selling 6 mio+ consoles in Japan in 93 weeks.

SMAShed it crazy

The Switch is a beast.

Those numbers are insane! Well done Nintendo

Thats a lot of copies.

Intrigued by the PS4 boost through; Just Cause 4 has that much pull in Japan?

Hurray!!! for Pokemon and Smash is a E-sports game free include Smash Poster. Smash on top of the Charts.

But Pokemon Let’s Go is an “amazing” success. How is it not taking off like everyone said it would?

@FX102A , Start of holiday sales (last year they did 85K sales for the same week) and there is a special deal in Japan with 5000 yen off of a PS4 / PS4 pro plus 2 free games of own choice.

@LUIGITORNADO Let's Go is still an amazing success. Smash Ultimate is just amazing-er.

MEDIA CREATE figures are only first 3 days of new launches. So this Smash figure is just 3 days, not 5

@Drussa And Sony has sold 7 million PlayStations in Japan, correct? Switch can’t be too far off outselling it, especially since Switch rarely fails to get about double the sales of the PS4 and PS4 Pro combined every week in Japan
@LUIGITORNADO PLG was a better success in selling consoles on opening week than SSBU. It quadrupled the sales of the previous week’s console sales vs double the previous week’s sales.

Wait people on Nintendo life said that smash wouldn't sell switch units. It's not a system seller etc etc.

You guys got it so wrong

debut sales from Brawl, Wii U, 3DS to Ultimate.
Smash Bros 3DS - 944,644
Smash Bros Wii U - 227,527
Smash Bros Ultimate - 1,220,535
Smash Bros Brawl - 819,647
wow, that's pretty impressive for Smash Bros debut sales!

Mario Party has had an extremely strong week too, given that it's two months old now. There's obviously a seasonal weighting to these figures, as shown by PS4's huge hardware sales jump, but these are all good figures nevertheless.

Switch outselling the Vita by more than 100-1 - we all know where Persona 5 Portable is ending up, don't we, Atlus?

@LUIGITORNADO,

It's still sold over a million copies,and due to the evergreen nature of Nintendo titles it will continue to sell more over the holiday season.

@johnvboy Probably Not just the holiday season. I think Smash will surpass 3 million in Japan alone in the long term.

@FX102A

I think it's just a holiday bump cause just about everything is up in sales. It's just the PS4 (and Pro) had a really good week in comparison to what it was at.

I'm Think Smash was big Hitter this year.

@roboshort,

I was talking about the sales of the Pokemon game,but yes Smash will take on Splatoon 2 for tghe top selling game in Japan.

It's an amazing game and rightly so it's reflected in the sales.
And the inevitable hardware boost as well. Great news all around, and egg on the face for all the "Smash isn't a system seller" doomsayers.

Just wondering how Smash has performed in the U.S,this tilte could have sold a tonne of copies there too.

@Hyrule,

And the negative nellies saying the switch would not keep selling as there were not enough games coming this year.

How did you manage to make this into three articles

@johnvboy That's the one that gets me. The switch has no games. It's like unless you are living in a cave with no electricity, on what planet does it not have games. Not every game maybe to everyone's liking but there is enough selection for everyone. But alas, people always have something to complain about

I bought 3 limited editions of Smash, one for me, two for my nephews. My youngest neph unlocked all characters in about 30 hours, he couldn't put the Switch down

Once again, 149 people that bought an XBox in a country so densely populated, I saute you!

I still can't believe Smash is selling this big. I definitely didn't see it coming. It's a popular series, but I didn't imagine it was this popular. Then again, I didn't see Crash Bandicoot dominating charts for 4 months in 2018 either.

The game certainly deserves it, it's the best Smash yet, but still, I'm pretty stunned it's "bigger than RDR2" status.

@MoonKnight7 "Japan however loves Smash"

Do they not love digital? This seems like a perfect game to have digital. I used to not care that these sales numbers didn't include digital but I'm really curious about this one. Maybe they all bought it twice, once for the box, once to play? I know they aren't opposed to digital in Japan, not with all those smartphones.

I bought it on cart, $48 w/ Amazon Prime, no regrets, but my Switch rarely leaves the dock. It is going to be a pain once Christmas comes and we all of a sudden go from only Kirby and Labo to SSBU, SMP, XC2 and Eevee, probably sometimes all in the same day. That's a lot of swapping. I give that little plastic cover 2 weeks before it's broken.

@NEStalgia There are 100,000 US military and their families stationed at 23 US bases in Japan, they gotta do something with their down time. Xbox probably reminds them of home.

The comparison is a bit unfair in my opinion as Zelda and Splatton were released when the install base was not as large as it is now so, obviously, the sales at the time would not be as great.

@NEStalgia You were the one saying its not as big as we said it is.

Well, I didnt think it was this big either.

It definitely deserves to outsell Pokémon, that game is an overrated pile of mediocrity. BotW, not as much, but this game is good enough that it doesn’t bother me as much.

Great! Smash isn't only a great game but a tribute to video games, Nintendo has given up pride and is even promoting franchises of third parties (I'm talking about the announcement of Joker in the TGA) I already imagined that it wld be better sold than Brawl. We can say that a number larger than 4 million copies in Japan is expected, this is insane. The DLCs will increase even more.

400 000 switch sold in two weeks, and I think it was an additional 100 000 the week before that. Thats impressive!

I dont think it will take to long to outsell the PS4 in Japan.

Smash REALLY took off over in Japan. I can only imagine how well it's performing State-side.

Not bad. And it's actually not that far behind the Japan lifetime sales of Odyssey, Mario Kart 8, and Ultra Sun/Moon.

@Mrtoad assuming those people didn’t buy Smash too there’s not enough correlation to draw s conclusion.

@LUIGITORNADO I'm confused? How does SSBU's amazing success at all indicate that Pokemon is not taking off? Seems like Pokemon has and is continuing to take off just fine, Smash is just taking off faster.

@Mrtoad While I also disagree with LUIGITORNADO's conclusion. I'm going to have to point out the flaw in yours. Just because Switch sales increased around then does not mean it was fully due to Pokemon. Especially since this is around when the Holiday/Black Friday sales started. Which likely has a lot more to do with the rise in Switch sales than Pokemon.

Not to mention the limited edition bundles for Pokemon, Diablo, AND Smash pulling sales in.

@LUIGITORNADO While it's not as big of a success as Smash. It's still a big success. Not as big as some were saying, but bigger than it probably needed to be for Gamefreak to consider a follow-up.

I personally didn't like it either, because I still see it as a lazy stopgap to buy time for the next Pokemon generation. But sales are sales.

@LUIGiTORNADO A console selling 150,000 more than last week once the new big game is out, when it usually just sells just 10-20 thousand per week is just a coincidence?

BOOM! And 8 out of 10 are from Switch, being the first six ones all from the hibrid. It really is a success over there!

okey, I looked into the sales numbers from september and forth.

First week in september Switch had sold 5m. Since then it has sold 1m so its just over 6 millions switch sold now.

Ps4 had almost 7 millions by the start of september. I did a quick count on it and it has sold ca 300k since then.

Switch: 6million units
PS4: 7,3 million units

With the momentum Switch have with Pokemon and Smash right now maybe it will surpass by May?

Hard to believe there were people who thought that Zelda was a bigger franchise than Smash Bros...

@Regpuppy There was already a boost from around 10,000 to 50,000 the week previous to PLG release. PLG ballooned Switch sakes to 4x that amount. Plus the Diablo bundle hasn’t been released in Japan.

@Knuckles-Fajita LOL. Yeah. I mean these are Japan numbers, true. In the West it seems to be something you hear Nintendo fans talk about but it's seldom mentioned outside that niche in the way the big Western games are. But I've never seen the marketing push on Smash in the past like big Western games like we're seeing this time too. That makes a big difference. Last week I got emails from Best Buy, Target, Nintendo, and GameStop, CoD style, with giant Smash splashes.

I wonder if people buy games because they want them or because they're told to want them.

@rjejr And of those 100,000......149 bought an XBox this week

It's weird though, Japanese developers seem to be getting a lot more excited about XBox and a lot more disenfranchised with Sony.....I sense a lot of disgust with Sony from the big publishers and the indies in Japan. I think they, at this point, would prefer the public switched to Switch & X1....but nobody will still touch that X1. Maybe it's because it lacks nude anime girls in quantity...wonder if that changes with Sony's new censoring

Guess you could say despite Japan's crisis, everyone loves a good game of Smash.

Oh my god... That is insane! I can't wait until that happens in the west.

@Mrtoad Holiday sales start well before Black Friday nowadays. It's way too close to Pokemon's launch to assume there's no overlap there.

I really don't get the appeal of this smash game. Zelda and Mario kart are in a different league in my opinion.

PS4 got a bump because an aggressive promotion: 5000 yen off all models and two first party titles (including recent titles like Spider-Man) free in Japan, which is quite a great deal.

RUN, RUN, RUN AWAY

@flapjack-ashley being flappy and have to make discount to make sales is what all fanboys can say.

@AlexOlney
Just wanted to say that sometimes when I am browsing Nintendo-related content on Youtube, I come across some of your videos, not realising it of course until after I have played the video and heard the familiar voice. It kind of feels like having an old friend unexpectedly show up at a party you did not expect them to attend.
Your work on Youtube is very much appreciated. Great job!

@FX102A nah, that's people who went holiday shopping for a switch, got fed up of the lines and went for a ps4 instead. Or maybe the start of the crazy shopping season there.

@NEStalgia I can't see the next Xbox selling any better in Japan even if they named it HentaiBox. MS and Nintneod may want to team up and push Sony out but I don't see it happening. PS4 sold 75,000 last week. For a 4 1/2 year old console that's pretty good.

hit or miss
i guess smash is selling good, huh

I figure once the sales came people would flock to it because SSB let's everyone enjoy.

There's not enough data here to make these assumptions that SSBU is that popular. All this says is that holiday sales are up not that smash is super popular. I'm willing to bet that the majority of those sales were bundles. And those bundles are most likely gifts. Highly doubt it sold this well because its popular. NA sales will be way lower. It's a good game but it's no RDR2. Hell if RDR2 was sold as a bundle as well its sales would've most likely been double what they are now.

@Helix87UKNOW So if a game doesn’t sell as much as RDR2 it’s automatically unpopular? Don’t be ridiculous.

@Helix87UKNOW @thesilverbrick I’m willing to bet you lose that bet.

Smash is incredibly popular period. May not sell as much as a multiplat like RDR2 across 2 major systems, but very popular nonetheless.

I took a trip to the NE part of the U.S. on launch weekend and the amount of people with a Switch at the airport playing Smash was surprising to say the least. A LOT of smashers out there right now and if they don’t play it they’ve heard of it, so it’s popular.

Great to see this numbers. I am seriously expecting Nintendo to show 10M+ sales this quarter (last year was about 8M with way smaller numbers reported week to week).
I did not buy smash yet as I don't like fighting games (and never played smash so no nostalgia) but I feel kind of tented to (maybe next year after I am done with the mega drive collection)

this went as i said it would
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/11/soapbox_dont_listen_to_the_pokemon_letrs_go_haters_-_the_game_has_definitely_found_its_audience#comment4803866

So basically 1 Xbox was sold for every 9,000 Switches. Hilarious.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate really is Ultimate

Absolutely amazing. See what a little marketing can do, Nintendo? Now keep that in mind for the future!

Very misleading title

@Helix87UKNOW
Can't wait to see your reaction when Nintendo reports a global launch week sell-through of 5-6 million copies for Smash Ultimate...

As Bayonetta would say: "Smashing".

3) [NSW] Super Mario Party (Nintendo, 10/05/18) – 69,861 (489,767)

I feel like this is getting lost under Smash Bros Ultimate' s record success.

Super Mario Party is now the 3rd-fastest selling Mario Party game in Japan, only behind Mario Party 8 and DS.

When Kirby beats Black Ops IV, you know life is good

@Mrtoad I'm saying you can't confirm that those sales would not have happened if it were Smash releasing in November. To further clarify you don't know if the people who bought a console and Pokemon Let's Go also bought it anticipating purchasing Smash.

Show me your data. Until then you can't back up your original statement.

@rjejr So far it seems that way. MS burned a lot of bridges in 2000 there, and it stuck. However, Sony is doing all they can to push away Japanese devs, and moving PS HQ to the US isn't doing them any favors. MS has a huge opportunity to court jaded Japanese devs come next gen. If I were making a magical girl game in Japan, PS is about the last place I'd want to work with right now. Add in no handheld counterpart, and a big door opens for Nintendo, and somewhat for MS. Sony continuously flips off Japan, and I do wonder if PS5 will hold their loyalty still now that it's basically also an American console that now also has American censoring, and not full support of Japanese devs, and no handheld business.

Sony has a limited Deal running where PS4 is 50,000 Yen cheaper and you'll get 2 Games for free (e.g. Spiderman). That explains the PS4 sales boost.

Nintendo is doing great! Didn't see Smash getting so big when it was first annonunced, still haven't bought it... but my resistance is fading...

I think it's safe to say that the Switch is taking over in Japan.

@NEStalgia I studied in the US from the early to the late 00's, Smash has always been huge in the West, I don't know how a series where the worst selling title still sold 5.5 million can ever be "niche." It was always among the top choices for games in our college dorm and we were far from the only playing either Melee or Brawl (depending which console was available at hand)

@WiltonRoots Pacman!

@gortsi Yep, gobbling up the competition over there...

@gortsi N64 and GCN weren't exactly huge sellers overall though. Wii and Brawl sold quite well, but that was the only truly great seller of the series, and the only truly broad install base it appeared on. Sure it had great attach for Nintendo customers, but Nintendo customers were still heavily outnumbered by other platforms and prominent games on those.

This newfound super success seems more related to the "everything Switch touches turns into money" phenomenon.

@LUIGITORNADO I could claim, that the only reason PS4 sales went up when Spiderman was released was due to RDD2 and that no one else has proof otherwise.

Pokemon will have longer legs but good for Smash.

Smash performance is mind blowing, but look at the whole chart! Switch is dominating and STILL getting some backup from the 3DS.

@MaSSiVeRiCaN So because you saw a bunch of people playing a switch at a airport you assume the games popularity correlates with that. No. I went to the movies to go see Rampage. There were a ton of people there to see it. It still isn't a very popular movie. B list at best. Seriously people check the real figures from the outlets/shops that actually sold the games. All numbers ,with the exception of privately owned franchise shops, line up with holiday/gift sales. Like I said maybe popular but it's no RDR2. And as I said before NA sales will be high but nowhere near 5-6 million as some dummy implied. I can also bet that majority of switch sales in NA are parents buying there kids a switch and the latest newest game to go with it only seems right. Oh I'm a 3rd year Economist who studies Pacific/Oceanic economic conditions and currently writing a paper on Japans aging population and its effects on there economy. 62% of japans population is over the age of 55.

@Helix87UKNOW In Japan, Smash a single platform game posts record numbers for the series. Switch sales increase more than two fold. Game has been on sale for less than a week, yet somehow it's still not popular. Ok mate, maybe you should go back to playing your PS4, and leave the rest of us to enjoy Smash.

No matter how you look at it, Switch has sold close to a million units the last 4 weeks in Japan and per reports about 1 million in US on black Friday weekend. Smash is the fastest selling in the series just about everywhere and since September, Nintendo went from "no way are they hitting their FY targets" to "it's going to be close." SMario Party, Let's Go, and Smash have all sold above expectations and as a result the Switch has managed to sell best at a time people are looking to buy.

@Arcamenel
Will it??

I think Let's Go will pretty much stop selling once next year's Pokemon Gen 8 title is released, while Smash Bros will sell for the entirety of the Switch's lifecycle.

The notion that Pokemon is some evergreen haven is greatly exaggerated, especially with Let's Go as its sales pace in Japan is far below the sales pace of every other Pokemon RPG released in the last 2 decades.

@Helix87UKNOW it’s fairly to safe to say that it will hit 5 Million very early, it sounds like by your reasoning Mario Kart isn’t popular either.

Point I was making with Smash is that it’s popular, it wasn’t just kids playing it as a matter of fact most people at the airport that I saw were grown. Obviously a multiplat game with an install base of around ~120 Million give or take is going to have the capability to sell much more.

Now let’s look at that attach rate when the figures are in for Smash and I bet it’ll be fantastic as well.

@Helix87UKNOW
"I can also bet that majority of switch sales in NA are parents buying there kids a switch and the latest newest game to go with it only seems right."

.. And this is a bad thing? This is supposed to prove that Smash Bros isn't popular??

I feel sorry for your economics professor(s).

Be interesting to see if anything can top this next year. The only releases that could be bigger are animal crossing (Japan anyway), next-gen Pokemon RPG (almost certain to beat it) and ... A new Mario kart (have to wonder if one is planned, and what they could put in it).

Sony is going to have to release some new hardware soon - a portable PS3 / PS4 would help.

Surely it's too early for PS5 ... That's the problem with the "Pro" releases...

@electrolite77 Goes to show you know nothing about economics. Parents buying there kids gifts is a factor. Seriously, everyone in this thread has no idea what they're talking about. This is just a bunch of Smash super fans hyping numbers. It's simple people. These numbers as presented aren't even correct. Smash didn't sell over 1mil in Japan alone. The number comes from sales in Europe and Japan combined. Stop hyping numbers people and Nintendo life is wrong publishing this article as such. Check actual figures posted by Nintendo its self and third party dealers. Not even close. Once again its popular but its NO RDR2. RDR2 is a milestone regardless of popularity in another country. Everyone acknowledges that. Smash will be forgotten by most in 6 months just like Splatoon. And like I said most sales in NA will come from parents buying it for there kid/s. Same thing goes for VG systems. Mostly purchased by adults for children. I do not see people lining up for Smash because it's a must have and its super popular. No. Most who will own and play this will be kids probably under the age of 16 who've most likely haven't even played a Smash game until this one. This will also correlate with current switch sales in America because the biggest group of purchasers are you guessed it PARENTS. More kids own a switch than adults and that's just facts.

Other thing of interest to me...

With online now paid, there was always a chance this would dampen the sales of heavy online games. This would be a lose-lose.

The corollary being that strong sales boosts the numbers for paid online users ... Which is a win-win.

So far it seems like a win-win ... Although there is a lot of offline content in smash.

@Helix87UKNOW So according to the weekly "Japan and European charts" RDR2 would've had to sell 16 million in the Americas for the 17 million number provided to make sense (according to these charts RDR2 has sold 500,000). And I'm pretty sure the XB1 sells more than 200 units per week in Europe. Where are you getting the info, that these charts are both for Japan and Europe? Source? Or did you just make that up?

@Helix87UKNOW "and that's just facts."
Nah, your post is just a string of assumptions with no hints where the information comes from (other than your brain).

@NEStalgia Smash 4 sold 14.7 millions (both versions combined). The series has been selling more with each iteration, Ultimate should easily clear 20 million in the long run. No other fighting series (nowadays, not the SF2 days) could even dream of these numbers. And people forget something else. How much money did they make from the more than 70+ amiibo (this is the game that started them in the first place) that they are still making, the various pieces of DLC on Wii U/3DS or the season pass from Ultimate? For me the greatest part is that the game is not just a celebration of all things Nintendo but of gaming in general, no other series could do a crossover like Smash

@Helix87UKNOW your stupidity knows no limits. These numbers are for Japan only, sorry if that hurts your feelings. These numbers are reported each week, which you would know if you weren't a sad pathetic troll who's not only lying but literally claims that a report of sales is NL hyping Smash fans. Go out, get some air, talk to a therapist. Sounds like you need it

@gortsi That was on a combined install platform of 71M with a Smash attach rate of about 20%. That's very successful but not as dramatic as the number makes it sound.

Switch having only 22M consoles sold to this point (as of October, a bit higher currently of course) 1.2M Smash sales, counting only one country, counting only physical sales in 5 days with a 22M console install base....that's a whole other number.....this is a different thing that the solid but not revolutionary success of past entries. If US numbers are in line with this we could be looking at a 25% attach in one week.

@rjejr

Yeah, we just don't know what digital sales are, but we know they keep growing every year. I guess digital sales are probably close to what everyone else is in other regions, but I don't know that answer either, lol. But definitely for Smash, I can't blame anyone who goes digital cause of it's "let's play a few rounds" mentality.

@NEStalgia well it's 14.7 millions on 85 million consoles combined so 1 in 6 people owned smash in the previous generation, it'll be interesting to compare sales related to install base end of January when the financials will be announced.

Is it really milk Link is drinking or some bodily fluid?

Insane! Well well well done!

Are there people honestly trying to downplay the success of the Pokemon LG games and Smash?! LOL.

Anyways, excellent numbers for Smash and the Switch, I can't stop playing Smash myself. 😁

@Helix87UKNOW Just make sure to run spell-check, and learn the difference between their, they're, and there before you hand in that economics paper.

I know you may not like it, but there is room for both RDR2 and Smash Ultimate on the store shelves. Everybody wins when we are treated to such a fine array of spectacular games.

It's so strange that Nintendo being successful offends people so much, and brings out the anger. Like every person in the world should be playing Spider Man or they are an idiot.

I only have 50% of the Smash roster unlocked. I’m loving the game so far and is glad that it is selling like crazy. It’s super fun and is evident that Nintendo put their heart and soul into it to give us the best gaming experience. I’m also happy that the Switch console in itself is selling like biscuits. The Wii-U nearly sealed Nintendo’s fate with how mediocre it was and Nintendo has bounced back and hit a homerun!!!

@FX102A Heh, don't forget pubg also launched day and date with smash Bros... I'm not saying it had anything to do with the sales, but jokingly it
very well could have.

@NEStalgia I've been saying for at least 2 years on PS, maybe 3, that Sony needs a handheld to remain relevant in Japan. They all mock me of course, Sony has said no more handhelds, but I think Sony needs one over there for consumers to care.

Now it doesn't need to be a true new portable, if Switch can stream games maybe just a handheld streaming device for PS5, a PS5 tablet that only streams PS5 games and other tablet stuff. If not, Japan may desert them in droves.

But, I still dotn' see an opening for MS, they dont' have a handheld either. A bigger stronger faster more expensive Xbox Two isn't any better than a PS5. Japan may just forego home consoles and go all in on Nintendo and PS Now, streaming PS5 games to their smartphones. Which is 1 hedge for Sony over there, PS Now being on PC. Who knows, maybe they'll let Japan stream PS Now PS5 games onto the PS4. Yeah, I know, that makes no sense, but nothing in gaming does these days, it's all a convoluted mess money grab. So predicting the future is a fool's errand. Well there are some predictions, no to Wii U 2, yes to PS5. Anything beyond that is anyone's guess. But MS won't ever get big in Japan, they just wont. There's no reason for them too.

@KryptoniteKrunch
Well, according to our resident "economist", if a game doesn't sell as much as RDR2 (aka every game outside of GTAV), then that game must not be very popular despite hard evidence suggesting the contrary.

When sickness like this breaks the internet you know smash is golden:
https://youtu.be/rJNQB2gcIQU

@johnvboy Oh my bad. Also, NSMBU is probably going to sell like crazy too in Japan.. Nintendo has really had a stacked four months or so.

@electrolite77 It doesn't "trouble" me. My argument was that Pokemon Let's Go isn't the global dominating game everyone was saying it was going to be.

@Helix87UKNOW,

"Seriously, everyone in this thread has no idea what they're talking about. This is just a bunch of Smash super fans hyping numbers. It's simple people. These numbers as presented aren't even correct. Smash didn't sell over 1mil in Japan alone. The number
comes from sales in Europe and Japan combined. Stop hyping numbers people and Nintendo life is wrong publishing this article as such."

Seriously you are coming across as a fool with this statement fella,the figures are from Japanese retailers only,and the game did sell over million copies,did you even attempt to read this article before you posted?.

Great sales...but its not "just in 3 or 5 days". You should take in account months of pre-sales.

A Merry Smashmas to everyone!

Just noticed as well Red Dead has dropped out of the top 20 completely. Japan just wasn't that interested it seems. All that graphical fidelity and massive budget and they didn't even bat an eyelid.

Edit: and would you believe it, Kirby's jumped back up again! Not bad legs for a game that some gave a week before falling off a cliff.

@rjejr Yeah, I agree, no handheld really kills their market in general in Japan. PS4 is doing "ok" but mostly because Nintendo wasn't a rival to it with WiiU. That's inverting now.

Sony never was terribly Japanese, but Playstation now is as American as XBox. The hardware, the games, the relationships, and now the HQ itself is 100% American. I think in the PS5 era that's going to bite them in the homeland.

I don't think Sony will have a "tablet" though...that whole industry just never worked well for them. Even as a premium accessory I don't see that happening since all existing tablets already can stream with the PS app (it works well!) It's not so far fetched that PSNow could stream PS5 games to PS4. The sub is worth more than the almost profitless console sale. I still widely expect XCloud will work on all X1's...why not? It's very possible.

As for XBox in Japan....the thing that may make it happen is simply that MS has always wanted it to happen. They've tried very hard, but lots of early mistakes, combined with Japan as it was 20 years ago made it not happen. But recently they've spent a lot of time and effort onboarding Japanese publishers while Sony is flipping them off. Despite the "Japan buys Japan" that's not 100% true. Apple is the #1 phone in Japan....nobody touches Sony there. In some cases, especially luxury, Western brands carry an air of mystique there. It's not as cut and dry as they just buy whichever one is Japanese. In the case of Sony the difference was, XBox, at the start, was very American. The business acted American, the console was BIG, the controller was BIG, everything was Texas sized, and everything exuded a bravado that turns off Japan.

Since then Sony has copied that bravado, and while Microsoft is focused on a lot of details that are more and more in line with Japanese values (the smaller, cooler, quieter console, with more streamlined styling, robust digital ecosystem etc) Sony has been trying to be more "American." Add to that that Japan is a bit hive-mind-ish at times, the publishers were tight with Sony, so that's the console everyone buys. If the publishers are being lured away from Sony and treating MS as important you may see a big shift occur. Japan supported PS4 because, there wasn't a reason not to, but PS4 has more and more left them behind, and sales show a big dip there. Phil's trying really hard to court Japan again.

I'm not saying X2 will dominate. Nintendo owns Japan now. Sony blew it. But I think Sony created a window for XBox to start to move closer to parity for the niche there into home consoles.

If nothing else they can market it with a half-naked anime girl. It worked for IE11.

@NEStalgia If Apple is the #1 phone in Japan then MS is going to have to get in bed w/ Apple - streaming Xbox games to iPads et al - and I dont' see that happening as they push Surface. So that's another thing against MS in Japan, not only are they not Sony, they also are the anti-Apple.

Though I see the app is on iOS, so that's a start I suppose.

IDK, just can't see it happening. Though honestly ever since FFXIII released on Xbox I've kind of been scarred by the whole experience and I'm not sure I see things clearly anymore. I just spent an hour trying to order holiday cards to send out to people that probably wont' be here until after Christmas even though I spent $8 on shipping. I need to get drunk. And some valium. smh

@rjejr They're not the Anti-Apple, they're the Anti-Android (despite actually owning part of Android....) MS supported Mac with Office as far back as I can remember. And Winphone is DOA.

And Windows is still standard on desktops in Japan, just not phones.

Were you scarred by FFXIII or by it appearing on XBox? Or by being unsure if youre a pedo every time they add Vanille to a cutscene? There's really multiple reasons to be scarred there.

What's more amazing is as of November FFXIII trilogy is now an XBox exclusive as far as current gen consoles go.

I think, with all of FF leaving Sony exclusivity we're definitely in a new era of what each console is. From PS1 until now FF has almost defined what Playstation is. Now FF is now a multiplat series. If KH Collection goes multiplat at some point (and it has to), IMO that radically changes the landscape of what each console is defined by. The services/features of the hardware have to start selling systems more than the games. Yeah, Sony has big exclusives still...but they're all western....Japan isn't nearly as into Sony's games these days.

looks like i'm not the only one getting smash for christmas than lol

So in the end, it seems like Nintendo's strategy of relying on Pokemon and Smash Bros to push hardware sales wasn't such a bad idea. Both games will ship 10+ million copies globally by the end of Nintendo's fiscal year ending March 2019, with the latter pushing closer to 12-13 million copies shipped.

@FX102A holiday season its a week closer to christmas thats the boost for all systems if you look they all got some type of boost except xbox one x

@NEStalgia I don't really remember Vanilla too much, all I remember is hating Hope more and more every time he opened his mouth, whiny little brat. And the chocobo living in that guys hair. If FFXIII were a Dreamcast game a chocobo living in a guy's hair would have been the entire game. And we would have liked it.

Squaresoft becoming Square was annoying Square becoming SquarEnix didn't really affect me. FF on Xbox just seemed wrong, like the fall of the series. Then the game sucked, and now the entire series kinda sucks, so Xbox can keep it.

I'm not really an "Exclusives" kinda guy. At some point there wont' be any more, it's too expensive to limit yourself to one console, and with PS Now and Xbox Gamepass people will play whatever they want on whatever they want, so I'm over it, but at the time it caught me off guard.

The whole industry sucks now though. I've been seriously contemplating giving up gaming recently. Too much stress. Patches, updates, season passes, loot boxes, microtransactions, searching through the 3 dozen Switch eShop games each week trying to find one I want. Watching tv is easier. Unless George Lucas makes it once it releases I can watch it and it's over, I don't have to wait 3 months and lay out more cash for a show to be completed.