Japanese Charts: Switch Hardware Sales Still Dominate But Kingdom Hearts 3 Takes Software Glory

Good to see the list is still very Nintendo stacked, and that Let's Go is still up there. KH3 was kind of a foregone conclusion in the lead, so this is pretty great still.

Those XBox numbers remain beautiful. I don't know how MS manages to get it so wrong in Japan. I would think they would sell more than that purely by people accidentally pressing the wrong button in such a dense country....it's like they limit sales.

This looks very healthy for the switch. It seems that the release of KH3 en RE2 had influence on switch sales last week. Without any new releases the switch shifted a lot more consoles than last week.

SMP looks like it’ll become the next million seller in Japan and at this rate Smash should become a three million seller before Splatoon 2 does.

“Still dominating?” But last week PS4 SDKs sold more. “Back to dominating” more like. SMP is catching BoTW!! What?! I mean SMP sure is fun but BoTW is a colossus. Well done SMP I guess.

Even early in the year, we've seen the Switch hardware sales stay consistently high. That really bodes well for the future.

@NEStalgia sometimes I wonder if those sales are Xbox users who go to live in Japan for extended periods and decide (AND have the means, of course) to get a new console there instead of taking their old one along.

@nhSnork You're not wrong. They're most likely mainly sold to US military troops in Okinawa. I don't think most stores there even stock Xbox's.

@beazlen1 What?

@NEStalgia Microsoft tried last gen to establish a foothold in Japan, getting lots of exclusive Japanese-centric games, and their society rejected the move pretty violently. So it seems like they quit trying this gen.

I'm amazed Microsoft has any kind of retail presence at all in that country, considering how consistently terrible sales are there.

Just need additional top tier games Nintendo, only thing holding you back! Glad to see the switch sales!

@Rob3008 Combined PS4 sales in previous week just beat Switch for the first time in ages. Only by a couple hundred. Normal service resumed this week.

@beazlen1 Yup, switch rocking it again!

@beazlen1,

Last weeks figures were pretty much the same between the Ps4 and Switch..

I think on the Whole the Switch is dominating console sales pretty much every week,and occasionally is level if the the Ps4 has a good week.

@Ralizah right. I’ve read it’s down to the size of the box not being considerate for smaller rooms in packed Japan. Although this didn’t do the PlayStations George Foreman grill any harm.

With the Vita wrapping up, the VN market that helped keep it afloat in Japan is going to be absorbed into the Switch. It will be seeing strong sales there for quite some time.

Even in the case where the global momentum of the Switch goes the way of the Wii and can't maintain the pace of the initial years, Japan will stay strong due to that.

@beazlen1 last week was a tie kind of
The ps4+pro did sale 200 more thanks to KH3 and RE2 but it didn’t dominate as they dominated together

But the switch was still the winner for a single system

It nice to see fitness boxing selling a bit better (although still barely)

Always Great to see a series I have so much time invested comes out with another classic. Also killed it on Famitsu.

Kingdom Hearts III (PS4, Xbox One) – 10/10/9/10 [39/40]

I can do the Indie on Switch BS and claim "Ateliers sold 2X more on PS4"... but reality is it was a fail on both.

Complete opposite from KH. Fans on the sidelines as KT drive this series to the ground. Really, let it take a break 😔

@KIRO I doubt it really had anything to do with the size of the system. There have been lots of complaints about the brand going all the way back to the original Xbox , and Microsoft addressed almost all of them by the time the 360 was released. Microsoft bent over backwards to accommodate Japanese players and developers and try to compete in the region, but the brand was just rejected wholesale. Ultimately, I think it comes down to a nationalistic rejection of a foreign entity trying to muscle aside the more established home-grown competition.

Good for sales but the overall sales is less market share to really make a dent. This are Sony IP blocked so if the Switch had the KingDom hearts I think it be alot more sales and different story.

Dragon Marked for Death looks like it’s doing pretty good for a small indie game with no advertising budget.

Wow. The switch doubled every other platform combined?!?!?

Just beat Kingdom Hearts 3 the other day. Holy crap, it exceeded my expectations. Glad it’s selling so well.

@Ralizah good response, thanks.

I was thinking about the nationalist angle too. Although it doesn’t seem to make much of an impact on phones, with Chinese, Korean and American firms showing strong sales there.

So it has to be done to brand. The games are there and, demonstrably, Japanese people will buy foreign hardware if it it uo to scratch.

So it’s brand character. An interesting puzzle for MS to solve for the next console!

https://www.zdnet.com/article/10-best-smartphones/

I would of thought KH3 be at a million by second week as it was constantly on top of Japanese most wanted list.

Kingdom Hearts III destroying the competition as it deserves to. Hope they start releasing some KH games on Switch

As mentioned.

Again.

I tore my way through the main campaign and now am currently striking off my postgame bucket list of sidequests. Starting with the Ultima Weapon, because I'm an absolute masochist.

Will still play the remasters if when they come to Switch.

@ALinkttPresent
It would be about time.

Geddit

well, it did take 11 games and and 14 years for kingdom hearts to get to 3.
though at this point its more of a kingdom hearts 15 then 3

Ha even the mighty Resident Evil 2 remake and the lazily Kingdom Hearts 3 couldn't save PS4 from the Switch domination.

@Ralizah MS really blew it (and I mean badly) with the first X-BOX. There's a whole history with interviews and such on it. But the other thing is Sony put a lot of effort into choke-holding publishers and distributors there. At any event where MS was to be participating and wooing participants there would be a Sony handler standing not too far away, and suddenly individuals who were enthusiastically speaking with MS hours before from, say Square, or Capcom, would suddenly pretend to not know who the MS employee was as though they were meeting them for the first time. Sony had Yakuza-esque (or perhaps Yakuza-actual) controls over everyone in the industry in Japan designed to choke out MS before they got there.

What I find interesting is that recently Japanese developers, not least of which S-E, have been loudly participating and praising XBox, as Sony has moved to flip them off ever more aggressively. Now with Sony moving Playstation to the US, I think, at least among developers, the nationalistic bent for Sony is waning. It's 2 American consoles now. I don't know if that will translate over to the consumer/retail space, but developers/publishers in Japan seem to be strongly embracing XBox these days. S-E and Capcom have been doing exclusive unveilings at XBox shows etc. Important for the western audience, but that's a pretty big shift and signal to the Japanese gamers: If you want to see the new DmC5 announce, or the new KH3 footage, you're going to watch the XBox show in the US. Japanese indies have been embracing it more too.

I'm not sure if sales can be salvaged there, but on the other hand, with the rise of Switch, I'm not sure Sony's sales can be salvaged either.....PS4 sells because it's PS4, but PS5 is going to be so American I'm not sure there will be demand for it there either.

@nhSnork Yeah, I think that's most of them. It's a shame it's so overlooked there, though Nintendo is kind of the defacto standard moreso than here, so it balances out. But it stinks seeing it as "Western only" because everything else about the platform is generally much better than Sony's. And I loathe seeing Sony monopolies anywhere...they get particularly ugly as a monopoly.

How nice if we could combine those two top hitters?

I live and hope...

@NEStalgia yep I have a feeling that Sony’s next console could end up being the worst selling Playstation in Japan if they carry on down the path they’re going. As you say they’re making machines catering for Americans now.

@WiltonRoots A thousand points of light.

I haven’t bought Kingdom Hearts 3 yet, I was going to play the HD versions of the first games to the end first. I will buy Kingdom Hearts 3 at some point, that is certain.

It’s a game that has been teased for so long, it’s just going to be really sad if it’s not going to sell a few copies. It’s expected.

@NEStalgia At this point most retail stores don't keep the console in stock. And the game section
for Xbone is smaller than PS Vita and Wii U. When I mentioned video games to my students they laughed that I even included Xbox on the slide next to PlayStation and Nintendo. And that was during the Wii U era!

I'm just gunna hold my breath and hope that KH3 will be released on Switch. I don't care if the grafics are worse than on Ps4. But since I don't have that mutch time to sit by the TV I won't Finnish it until KH4 is released (AKA in about 14 years).

@Heavyarms55 aww, that's depressing. It really is a nice platform. Sony has more JP centric games as part of the viscious circle, but looking at how popular Western games are getting there on the sales charts, you'd think it'd be an xbox country by now.... ... It's just the nicer setup for Western games.

Then again in the wiiu era i would have laughed at you for including XBone..... It was kind of a total joke until 2 years ago

@NEStalgia It's a snowball effect. It sold poorly at first, people thought it wasn't great so sales only worsened. Stores saw the units weren't selling and stopped ordering more, which further lowered sales as the people who might have been interested were less interested since they now had to wait for one to be delivered... Few people have the console so there was little need to stock many games, developers saw Xbone games not selling well in Japan and skipped localizing the games into Japanese... At this point the Xbone in Japan is more niche than the PS Vita in the US.

@Heavyarms55 XBoxU

no question ms massively messed up the initial launch in Japan... Theres a tragedy of stories from that time including bill Gates going off script and turning TGS into an xbox infomercial. Plus The Duke . But Sony's sabotage didn't help. And odd things that aren't so much things today but were 19 years ago.... Like the console being black.....a nono in JP.... Except Sony did it... But apparently that rule didn't apply to domestic companies. I don't think today that presents nearly the issue it did then. But there were too many brand snags. Still, if love to see them really work past it. The big publishers are on board these days... Leaving Sony to dry and working with ms. I think the tides have quietly and rapidly changed in the industry.... Mostly Sony's own foolish doing. But it hasn't translated to consumers yet there.

Where is US sales

@NEStalgia One of the biggest mistakes they made with the Xbox line is giving up the deal they had with some specific idol anime games. Idol anime is huge and for a few years Microsoft had an exclusive deal for a few very popular titles. This drove sales to a point of Xbox becoming known as the platform to play those games on. But when it came time to renew that contract some executive in the west thought it wasn't worth what they were paying and cut the deal. The games went multi-platform and then everyone in Japan who liked them decided they would rather have them on Japanese made machines where they already played most other titles.