Japanese Charts: Strong PlayStation Sales Can't Knock Mario Wonder From The Top Spot

The cracks in the armor are finally starting to show!!!

I think hardware Will be back to the norm in a few weeks

The 7,000 people buying ACNH in Nov 2023 must have had someone eat their original copy just to see what it tastes like. Maybe it was a TikTok challenge or something.😂

These numbers are still super strong for the switch’s 6th year on the market (soon to be seventh) genuinely curious if this will affect Nintendo’s console release strategy supposedly next year?

@IronMan30 Not really, there's a new PlayStation sku, so Sony have had a boost - let's have this chat after Christmas before assuming this is a permanent shift of momentum.

PS5 sales is suddenly strong. ☺

The slim always seemed likely to do well in Japan, though I expect this is just a blip. Nintendo will no doubt be back on top again once the holiday season really kicks into gear.

Give team green a glimmer of hope before destroying them 😂

I wonder if Mario RPG can knock it off top spot next week, either way Mario is ruling the charts for the foreseeable future.

But Switch is still selling well for a nearly 7 year old system.
PS5 will sell a crazy amount in its lifetime.
Xbox is on its knees. I don’t even see the Acti/Blizzard deal making much difference to them now.
The only way they could really get to the Game Pass subs they need is to put it on Switch as well.
I play Switch and Xbox and Xbox looks like a floundering system.

@IronMan30 what cracks? The fact the OLED Switch outsold both PS5 models and came out a year later is impressive on its own.

@IronMan30 Hardly. It’s nearly 7 years old! It’s sales are still crazy for its age.
As for Xbox….. oh dear.

@rjejr could be gifts for family or friends? Maybe amongst those 7,000 or so people never played ACNH before, so they decided to get it. Gaming customers don't buy everything on day one

@BaldBelper78 @progx @FourBs He's joking bruh. The extra emphasis with a lot of !!! makes it clear.

@BTB20 Fair point lol

@rjejr @progx

I legitimately think it got a boost from the Infinite Wealth trailer. Sales have been up about 300% since Microsoft's Partner Expo.

I've made my contribution to Sony to help them "win" 2023. My PS5 Slim should be in my hands by the weekend.

@BTB20 my mistake

Not a huge drop-off for Warioware so thats good. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Star Ocean is out of the top 10. Guess we'll find out tomorrow when places 11-30 are revealed, but hoping the Switch and PS5 versions at least will be there still

@IronMan30 Yes but the chart doesn't allow for digital sales of the Switch, so technically it won this week, or something like that. Hang on where's Spider Man 2? How many John Edwin posts? So many questions.....

Switch is still maintaining a steady pace. Good job.

@BaldBelper78,

The PS5 will do well to sell as well as the PS4, pretty sure it will not get near to the Switch in terms of sales, it all depends on how much of the western market it takes from Microsoft.

@rjejr I believe it's from the copy in the animal crossing switch lite bundle

Wish WarioWare did better-it’s such a fun series!

"1. PlayStation 5 – 86,869 (4,019,191)
2. Switch OLED Model – 44,217 (6,041,114)"

Switch 2 confirmed and promptly cancelled for good measure, Nintendo to go third party and make games for PlayStation Portal.

japan gamers were waiting for the news ps5 slim to arrive ..

@progx @FourBs that was sarcasm. There is a YouTuber from the US that would say that whenever PS5 outsold the Switch earlier this year and I'm just riffing that.

Bloody hell the Switch is a beast. No other way to describe it. Will probably still be selling 40 or 50 thousand per week when Switch 2 releases in Japan.

@johnvboy it’s on course to overtake PS4 in US so they will get there I think.
Xbox is losing ground.
But then Xbox doesn’t even get advertised in the UK.
Can’t recall last advert I saw tbh.

@BaldBelper78,

It will be close, the PS4 sold pretty well.

@johnvboy it definitely won't outsell the switch(which I think will do 150-160 million), but it's tracking ahead of the ps4 in North America, Japan and other regions now, so I reckon it will have better life time sales.
Xbox is the interesting one, will the new Activision deal help them sell more consoles. Its just been revealed that the series consoles are 11% behind the xbox one in North America during the same time period.

@Serialsid I just don’t see the Acti deal making enough of a difference. PS players will still play on PS. It any generate revenue but it’s not going to seek consoles or games.

@EaglyBird Same here. At this point I consider it my favourite game series ever.

I recently finished Yakuza 0 and wow what a game, one of the best games I've ever played.

Yakuza is charming, funny, engrossing, and completely unique. It also has the best story and voice acting of any games I've played.

I've played 0,1,2,3 and Like a Dragon, and really looking forward to playing 4, 5, and 6.

Like a Dragon is a weird one for me as I hate turn based battles, and I miss playing as Kiryu. But it still has that unique Yakuza charm, great story, side quests, minigames etc, so ultimately I still love it

Still around 66000 for Switch so not bad at all considering it’s on its last legs.

@Serialsid i seen one xbox youtuber claim that the activision deal will sell ps5 consoles because of call of duty..

@johnedwin @BaldBelper78 @Serialsid

You can miss the point if you focused on fanboy nonsense. You need to follow the money to get a picture of what's going on.

MS had the most successful and profitable quarter in Xbox history despite having a crap install base and seeing dwindling console sales.

Starfield saw over 1 million new Game Pass subs and broke Xbox concurrent user records, while being the 3rd most played PC game on Steam at the same time. It also saw record X series S sales, but didn't move the needle on the X series X.

Meanwhile, Nintendo is dominating the landscape selling a 7 year old graphing calculator with joypads attached to it.

Xbox is no longer trying to sell consoles. Activision isn't about moving consoles. Exclusives are not about moving consoles. Selling consoles isn't even about selling consoles any more Everything is a means to an end, and that end is selling Game Pass, eventually as a steaming platform to extremely low end devises. We know (again, from things disclosed at trail) that they are actually trying to get Game Pass on Switch.

You can see how disconnected most people are from Microsoft's reality by looking at the Activation deal. 100% of the discourse is about Call of Duty and Sony. But everything we saw at the FTC trial, everything that's come from Microsoft to it's investors, everything that's been leaked to the press, ever public statement Satya Nadella has made speak to Microsoft buying Candy Crush developer Activision, to compete in mobile space.

Well the launch of the PS5 Slim definitely help Sony raise the bar a little. How long that will keep up is the real answer.

This chart will change in about 2 weeks time and Nintendo will be back on top. Yakuza does relatively well in Japan and that's the reason for the hardware spike. However, like most non-nintendo games, it never lasts more than a few weeks once the 'fans' have purchased. They think sprint, Nintendo think marathon.

@Jalex_64 A thing about Playstation slim SKUs is that prior to the PS5, the slim SKUs would be cheaper. PS4 Slim, for example, was $100 off the price of the PS4 Phat when it released. With PS5 Slim, it's the same price as PS5 Phat, with the PS5 digital Slim being more expensive by $50 than the PS5 digital Phat. So my guess is that it's a blip like you mentioned. To me, it's not a bump by folks who have been waiting for the Slim since the PS5's launch as those folk likely were waiting for a price reduction like before. This bump is likely by folks who have been waiting for the Slim for a few weeks.

i cant believe that 1: warioware is as high up as it is and 2: pikmin is still kickin on that list!

@IronMan30 My apologies

@EaglyBird Ah that's interesting, we must be different types of gamer despite our shared love of Yakuza

For reference I'm a big fan of Street Fighter and racing games, turn based battles aren't really my cup of tea.

I really love the glorified beat 'em up gameplay in the mainline Yakuza series, and even the fact you can upgrade moves etc. I find it quite satisfying, especially after watching some cutscenes, to blow off steam furiously steamrolling some street thugs, especially being able to smash them with bicycles and various other objects with the Beast style

So it really took me loving Yakuza in general to be able to enjoy Like a Dragon and put up with the turn based battles.

But I guess it's a good thing that Like a Dragon was able to expand the audience of Yakuza, and get even more people to appreciate it.

As a long time fan of the series I always thought it was ridiculously underrated, so I'm glad Yakuza 0 was able to make it popular in the west and finally get the recognition it deserves.

I completely agree too on the amount of stuff being in Yakuza being completely unparalleled. And yes it's a good point, it's a wonderful mixture of being quite serious and convincing and emotional, and just absolutely ridiculous and light hearted. It's a nice contrast.

One of the things that struck me about Yakuza 0 in particular, is the sheer amount of effort put into all the minigames and side stories etc. More effort and attention to detail, than many main aspects of other games. Ryu ga Gotoku are certainly not lazy. An incredible, unique studio, and I really hope they can continue being this elite now that Nagoshi has left.

@HeadPirate I agree that Microsofts long term goal is owning the streaming space and having as many subscribers to GP as possible. Hardware is not their to priority anymore. But selling less series consoles than the xbox one in North America(their own turf as it were) is not good. They sold less units in North America during October than the switch, and that's after just releasing starfield and forza 8. That's not good optics.
And yes they've had a good quarter, but GP numbers are still nowhere near where they need them to be. Stagnant on console, strong on PC. But the way they count concurrent users can sometimes be misleading. One of the main tricks on PC was just to create a new email address and do the $1 a month trial and repeat.
Also as impressive as Starfield numbers were, 25% didn't even get off the first planet on GP. Players actually finishing games on GP compared to switch and ps5 is quite low. And I've just looked on steam, Skyrim has more players at the moment than Starfield.
And I know they want the billions in the phone market, Phil Spencer said that years ago. It will be interesting to see if people in that market space want to subscribe to another service. Want to play those sorts of games on a small screen. Candy crush yes, but the rest of the line up?
I think the sad thing is, the hard-core xbox gamer, that's been with them from the start, is going to be left behind whilst they chase these other markets. And I say this as a series x owner and GP subscriber.

@BaldBelper78 really? The Xbox advertising for Diablo was relentlessly run in cinemas and YouTube almost leading me to think that game was exclusive to that console....

@FourBs Didn’t see anything on TV in the UK.

@BaldBelper78 Weird, I'm in the UK too and deffo seen ads running with the Xbox being the focus format, maybe they just don't advertise on TV anymore...

@FourBs lol this happens everytime Sony has one of their rare HW Ws and its usually when either they get a new model, switch is about to get a new model, or that brief period (like barely a month) when PS5s started becoming common to see before sales “leveled out” after the FoMOs were exhausted.

Notice there is none of this “PS5 is dying” when Switch wins in UK.

@Arawn93 Yeah that's very true!

Glad to see the 3DS family (Yes, I count the 2DS models in this) isn't completely dead in Japan yet.

LaD out there really pushing out consoles. I respect that. I need to pick it up myself so I can finally play some Daytona 2 Power Edition at home!

@Serialsid

Nothing you're saying matters outside internet decision boards and fanboys trying to argue about why they picked the right team. You're not getting my point, which is that only money matters.

Selling more Xbox Ones then series X is bad? Why? If they made a billion dollar selling Windows 95 games, the only part anyone care about is that they made a billion dollars. 25% of people didn't leave the first planet? Who cares? They bought the game (seeing that's only tracked on steam).

I mean, power to you if you need to tell yourself "it doesn't count" for whatever reason ... you believe whatever you want to, I'm just telling you what MS and investors believe. To investors, the fact that it broke into the top 3 concurrent players on a 3rd party service dispute the fact that they give it away for free to 20 million people was seen as pretty positive news. In fact it was the best news of the generation, and is going to transform Xbox moving forward. It was proof positive that Game Pass wasn't cannibalism and was instead a new vertical (something, in fairness, most 3rd parties were already saying).

They didn't "have a good quarter". It's Xbox second higher quarter of all time, despite hardware being down 11% and them being 3rd place in a 3 pony race by conventual thinking. They are blowing away the success they had when they were the undisputed #1 console. No one is upset with the state of Xbox division right now because they are behind in the indicators that used to matter, instead everyone is starting to realize they don't matter any more.

This was the most optimistic Xbox outlook we've seen this generation, and it's specifically because they are moving away from caring about how the console preforms.

Look I'm not going to comment on a lot of what you said because it's just inaccurate, but you really should look into stuff before you talk about it because while I'm sure it's not actually the case, it makes you LOOK like a fanboy just willing to say anything to defend your team. For example, the Game Pass free trail was cancelled before the Starfield release specifically so they could get an accurate gage of it's performance, and MS never includes free trials when speaking to the service because, again, they are not fan boys fan boying out. They are a business trying to make money, and misrepresenting free trails to your investors is literally a crime.

@HeadPirate you seem very bullish from one great quarter. One quarter where they had arguably the biggest, most hyped game of the year. "Going to transform xbox going forward", now that is some serious hyperbole!
The quarter before they were up 1% from the year before. The quarter before that xbox gaming revenue was down 4%. Yes I know active users has been increasing, it will be interesting to see if the trend continues. The pressure is certainly going to be on now, investors are going to want to see a return on 70 billion. Just a year ago xbox were 40% below their own GP growth target. Will be interesting to see where they are in a years time.
I mentioned xbox sales because they considered the xbox one a failure, so selling less than that is not a good look. Maybe it doesn't matter to the bottom line, still not a good look for the brand.

Is the PS5 Slim really that much better than original as sales suggest? It's only a tiny bit smaller and sells for the same price. I don't get the hype.

@WiltonRoots These charts here are physical only for all games.

@Linux7055 it has the same specs as the original ps5 but it does has more storage 1tb to 825gb for the original plus it is smaller.. smaller is good.

@Serialsid reading his comments he is clearly a xbox fan first then a nintendo fan sony fan he is not...

@Serialsid

Again, your key disconnect is this idea that Microsoft cares about Sony, Nintendo, video games, you, me, or literally anything that isn’t money. They do not care where the money comes from.

The Activation deal was ROIC positive before it closed … or it wouldn’t have closed. Activision isn’t some intangible battle piece on a console war-room map that’s only a good deal if it helps them eat Sony’s lunch. it’s 13,000 skilled and experienced professionals, some buildings, a lot of hardware, and some IPs, and they bought it because it was the most cost-effective way to acquire those assists. They will now be assigned to the company based on pre-set guidance, and a lot of them will be moved away from gaming altogether.

No one is looking to Xbox to make this deal “worth it”. The deal happened because everyone already thought it was worth it.

Speculative acquisitions (where you buy something because of the value it might offering in the future) are a thing, but it’s hedge funds that do that. Companies make depreciated acquisitions, where you buy something because it's cheap and you have money in the bank doing nothing. You buy a company because buying a new building is $2 billion but buying a company that owns a building you could use is $1.5 billion.

Look at it like buying a trading card. They didn’t buy Activation because it’s a rare card that sells for $10 and they think it will be worth $20 in the future. They bought it because it’s a card that should be worth $20 but it was selling for $10 because Bobby Kotick wiped his ass with it.

I would be SHOCKED if less then 50% of the human resources they got in the Activision deal have not already been moved to AI and cloud or if virtually all the real-estate isn't being converted in AI and could server farms. THAT’S it’s value to Microsoft. They did not buy a 68 billion dollar company for their tiny offshoot division that makes 15 billion a year and has been cash-flow negative for most of it's existence. That would be ludicrous. Xbox Studios will l get 1000-1500 people from the core dev teams at best.

I’m not anything, I’m just telling you how it is. I don’t really have a horse in this race. But Microsoft is bullish, and not because of “one good quarter” but because it’s actually cause and effect. It didn’t just happen. They made a huge shift in guidance, put all their eggs in one basket, and things turned out more or less exactly how they wanted them to. So obviously that transformative. They are going to keep doing this very different thing that got them the 2nd best quarter they ever had and move away from the things that took them from undisputed kings of gaming to .. well … what they are now.

@EaglyBird I tried. Game talks too much.

@EaglyBird I dislike games that talk too much.

@HeadPirate you make a lot of assumptions. Microsoft may be a trillion dollar company, but they have a lot of failures in their recent past.
Time will tell how all this plays out.
I have a feeling though, gamers won't be the winners.

@HatesCheese " animal crossing switch lite bundle "

OK now that makes sense. Cold. Hard. Facts. I probably should have guessed that. Thank you.

@HeadPirate " Infinite Wealth trailer. Sales have been up about 300% since Microsoft's Partner Expo "

I have no idea what MS has to do w/ ACNH but I'll go look it up, thanks. 👍

@progx " on day one "

Not on day one, maybe day 365, or 730, but over day 1,300 that seems like a lot of sales for 1 week. How many other games sell 7k a week 3 1/2 years after release? GTAV comes to mind but I think that's for gold bucks or something weird. 🤷‍♂️

@rjejr

Oh by all means, sir, ALLOW ME!

This debuted at the Xbox partner expo.

https://youtu.be/yU6qZi6zxRY

I mean out of all the 2D Mario games it is easily one of the best. I would even put it up next to Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World.

@HeadPirate Oh that. Yeah I know about that. My brain wasn't making the leap from that to 7k copies of ACNH being sold though. 😂

@rjejr

Haha, I'm only partly serious. It perfectly parodies the New Horizon's reveal trailer, so it's going to put AC:NH back in people's minds and could conceivably cause a few people who missed out to finally pick it up.

I actually don't think this can be the bundle. The bundle has a code in it, and Nintendo normally doesn't report online sales ... so unless they are manually isolating the SKU for that bundle and adding a AC:NH sale for each sold it wouldn't be captured, and if they are doing that it's pretty bad form because it would count a false positive if people didn't redeem the code.

Mario is a classic in Japan, it be hard to just knock it off. So unless Sony has a Mario game that's isn't going to happen anytime soon. Sales go big because of the upcoming Holidays but the real sales are end of the fiscal year reports. New hardware always garner sales. But considering Switch 7 years going is still selling strong that won't knock it out the lineup anytime soon as so many would like to dream of which is just a dream only. And coming of Switch 2 will only future the market share for Nintendo.

@HeadPirate The plot thickens.

For the record, I was kidding, I'd guess the 14,000 parents buying Switch Lites for their kids for Chirstmas probably also bought them ACNH to put in their stockings. 🎄

@rjejr

Haha, I like that theory!

Hello Kitty Island Adventures might also have something to do with it. That game is getting pretty popular, but it's exclusive to Apple Arcade .. so people might be looking for something close they can actually play.

Another really odd thing that often impacts sales in Japan in weird ways is when a large brand of UFO catcher buys a ton of a game to add as prizes. I'm not in Japan right now so I can't check it, but I know the last time we saw a huge serge in 2DS sales it was because of that.

@HeadPirate Everything in Japan is weird, that's the best part about it. 😂

@Eagly_lmtd_xmasskin I'll be playing my first Yakuza game in a couple weeks.