FirstEmperor

The fact that Switch 1 is keeping up with the PS5 after the PS5 digital edition had a massive price drop (with the introduction of the Japanese only model) and S1 had a substantial price increase really shows how far Playstation has fallen in Japan.

@-wc- So the person whose first comment here was to express skepticism over the allegedly "counterfactual" speculation in the article goes on to make even more baseless speculation about what a dead man would think of modern Nintendo hardware just to dunk on the Switch 1...

Good to know that hypocrisy continues to be the most comment element among Nintendo haters.

@Krlozgod Wrong. Everyone outside of Japan paid extra for the forced Wii Sports bundle. The Wii was cheaper in Japan, where Wii Sports was not bundled.

There is no such thing as free. If you think something is free, it's either because you're paying for it in a way you don't realize, or it's because you are the product and your user information is being sold to advertisers.

On topic, I personally got 15 hours of playtime with Welcome Tour. Easily worth $10 if you like interactive museums.

@StewdaMegaManNerd For nearly $500 it's an insult to ship games on a key card. And SD Gundam G Generation Genesis for Vita came out on 2 cartridges so no, you wouldn't have to download half the game if Square Enix had any respect for their physical game customers. Now I understand why 2 cartridges wouldn't be economically feasible for a standard edition, but there's no excuse for this special edition to be on a key card.

@Fighting_Game_Loser SD Gundam G Generation Genesis for Vita came on 2 cartridges. If Vita can do it, so can Switch 2.

@axelhander It never ceases to amaze me that the people who falsely accuse Nintendo of being evil are the same people who defend actual evil, such as stealing.

@Toastmaster Are you responding to me? If so, falsely accusing me of being a liar is blatant projection on your part. You claimed Mario Kart World is the most expensive game ever. Phantasy Star IV was $100 in 1995. Mario Kart World is $80 now. The only one lying here is you.

@Friendly You mentioned two reasons, and I quote: "general audience moving towards phones and pc." The move to phones happened before S1 was released and probably was the primary reason 3DS fell so far from DS, but Switch has completely recovered from that decline. The move to PC is happening primarily with the Xbox audience. I don't see any reason to think the current Nintendo audience would want to move to the most expensive platform for gaming. And the higher component prices are going to affect PCs even more than S2. As for PS5, it's only about 4 million behind PS4 launch aligned and it only started to fall behind around the time of the price hikes.

I do think the next gen consoles PS6 and Helix are likely to struggle with rising costs and poor economic conditions, but so will PC gaming.

@Friendly PS5 is only slightly behind PS4 launch aligned, and that seems to be due more to the price hikes than anything else you mentioned. Switch of course is so far ahead of Wii U that it more than makes up for slight decline in PS5 and the significant decline in XSX.

Next gen has only just begun with S2. It remains to be seen how PS6 and Helix end up doing.

@Friendly As far as consoles go PS5 is keeping up with PS4, and of course S2 had a record first year and S1 is on the verge of becoming the best selling console of all time. It's really only Xbox that's had a massive decline, and that's the audience that's moving to PC. And the "general audience" moving to phones is something that already happened before S1 came out.

And yes, nothing lasts for eternity. That applies to smartphones and PCs too, by the way.

@JohnnyMind Nintendo clearly isn't responsible for third party games that have been delisted, and there's translation patches of the original Famicom version of Fire Emblem. If people aren't willing to wait until the Switch is out of production before uploading copies of its games, then preservation clearly isn't the goal.

Finally finished the DK Bananza challenges so at least I'll have the Sunday sessions to play this. Looking forward to it!

Oh yeah, there's a Splatfest going on now too. Guess I'll play a few rounds of that as well.

@Friendly So you acknowledge that it is the "combined" console sales that are getting worse, not Nintendo's. Why then, is the conclusion of your original post that "Nintendo has to expand NSO to phones," if it's not Nintendo that's responsible for overall sales declining?

@JohnnyMind I personally don't think there's ever a legitimate reason to pirate currently available platforms, but of all the possible exception your choice of Super Mario 3D All Stars and Fire Emblem are bizarre. You don't need a Switch emulator to play Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy, or the first Fire Emblem.

@NorrinRadd It's a 2 day PvP event where you choose and fight for a team. The number of votes each team gets, and the "clout" earned from match wins from team members, are both factors in determining which team wins the Splatfest.

@Gamecuber Lots of great GC memories! I was also one of the few people with Crystal Chronicles and 4 GBA adapters. It was really fun if you had the hardware for it.

Nice to see Switch 2 hardware up after the low sales last week! Hopefully Splatoon can keep up these sales up.

@Toastmaster As I said earlier, the physical cost of MKW is completely irrelevant when compared to GTA6 because GTA6 does not have a true physical version, so only the digital prices are relevant, and GTA is more expensive digitally. Also, since dollars are not used in your country the entire rest of you post is also irrelevant, because exchange rates can fluctuate wildly to the point where anyone can cherry pick unfavorable rates at a specific point in time and make anything seem more expensive than it really is.

In conclusion, your claim that MKW is the most expensive game ever is patently false.

@Klingenlied Clearly he doesn't have much respect for victims of cancer, because if he did then he would not derail a news article about cancer survivor to shill for "old rival SEGA." There's plenty of other news articles and reviews on this site where such a comment would be welcome.

Anyways, back on topic, glad Tsunku made a recovery and hope he stays healthy.

@mlt It's not a new game. It's a collection of classic 2D games (so nothing from the N64). And I think the Goemon collection was featured in the most recent Japanese Direct. There's been no confirmation of a release outside of Japan.

@repsahj It's the highest it's been since the price increase, and that's without any big Switch 2 releases for the week. For comparison the Switch 2 sold 45,825 before the price increase was announced:

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2026/04/japanese-charts-no-amount-of-sci-fi-shooting-can-trouble-tomodachi-life

And it should also be noted the Switch 2 reached a low of 23,059 after the price increase:

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2026/06/japanese-charts-switch-2-sales-continue-to-slip-but-tomodachi-life-holds-the-newbies-at-bay

@johnedwin If you really did "always talk about facts" as you say, then your first post wouldn't have been baseless speculation about what Famitsu readers would've voted for during the GC/PS2 generation.

@Zeeba The phrase "anti-consumer" has become increasingly meaningless in recent years and usually seems to mean "something I don't like." Consumers aren't a monolith, and many things I hear being talked about as anti-consumer (like the lack of price drops and rarity of sales) are actually pro-consumer for early adopters like myself, because it means the games I buy are likely to retain or even increase their value. It's only "anti-consumer" for people who aren't even consumers yet.

@Toastmaster I was wondering if you were going to respond with Canadian or Australian dollars as some kind of gatcha, so I'm quite surprised you would cite a continent that doesn't use dollars at all. After a quick Google search I found that MKW launched on the eShop for 899kr in your home country of Norway (according to your profile), while Grand Theft Auto VI is launching for 949kr. Since GTA6 is not getting a proper physical release I'm not going to consider the physical version of MKW, as there's no basis for comparison.

As for Mario Kart 8, after you posted repeated disinformation I simply don't believe you when you say it was $50 (in whatever currency) on Wii U. In the US it was $60, and MK8D on Switch 1 was also $60 with the first wave of DLC included.

@HeadPirate I figured a mainstream console like the Genesis and a game like PS4 without any expensive gimmicks would be the best counterexample, since there's always going to be specialty consoles like the Neo Geo AES, or games like Steel Battalion, that are not intended to be a mass market product like Mario Kart World. But yeah, when you include stuff like that then MKW is nowhere near the most expensive game ever.

@Toastmaster Mario Kart World costs $80 (or $50 in the Switch 2 bundle), not $100. And even if it did cost that much, it still wouldn't be "the most expensive game ever released." Phantasy Star IV was $100, and that was back in 1995. You don't know what you're talking about.

Nice! Now the top 2 video game based movies are both Mario!

@Anti-Matter This reminds me of how much I unironically want a Power Rangers style game with Kid Cat and his team!

It's nice to see a wholesome cross promotion that actually makes sense. And the cloud island is nice for those of us who don't live in Japan (anymore).

@JohnnyMind I sympathize with emulation for the sake of preservation, but there's no legitimate reason for emulating a console currently on the market. Hope these thieves get buried.

These are really cute. A hug from Altaria would probably be the comfiest thing ever!

Good riddance. Long overdue after the "developers" drove the original creators (AKA real developers) out.

It took longer than I thought it would, but Playstation 5 finally has an early year victory over Switch. Probably only due to Monster Hunter Wilds but it's nice to see home consoles aren't completely dead in Japan.

@DonutPie It's even crazier when you consider that the beginning of the year has historically been weak for Nintendo and strong for Sony. The past few years actually had PS5 outselling Switch for most (if not all) of January. The fact that PS5 can't maintain even that small amount of success really shows how bad things are now for Playstation in Japan.

@ZZalapski Technically, "generations" aren't even a thing that exists in any official capacity. They're a completely fanmade attempt to categorize the Pokemon series into neat little boxes, which failed the moment that the fandom claimed that the Switch game Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee were somehow in the same generation as the 3DS game Sun/Moon.

Neat! Never got very far but I enjoyed what I played. Pepper Steak is such a great battle theme!

@Banjo- Alright, it was 1 week. My claim was still closer to the truth than your completely false claim that XB360 moved on before PS3 did, and the rest of your post about Sony's motivations is nothing more than baseless speculation with not a shred of evidence to back it up.

Furthermore the final XB360 revision was the Xbox 360 E, which came out after the final PS3 revision, the "super slim." So you're just making stuff up at this point.

@Edu23XWiiU PS2's most successful year was 2003, and by then standalone DVD players were as cheap as $50. The idea that PS2 sold significant numbers as a cheap DVD player may have been true when it launched in 2000, but again, the real reason PS2's total sales are so high is because it continued to sell incredibly well even after PS3 launched.

Switch pretty much has no chance of selling 40+ million after Switch 2 launches, but it's done so well so far that it won't have to. 3DS sold about 10 million after Switch launched, so if Switch can manage that then it will have no trouble surpassing PS2.

@Banjo- XB360 had one of the highest (if not the highest) failure rates of any console ever, so the idea that PS3s were "probably" purchased as replacements more often than XB360s is utterly laughable.

Also, PS3 was never "super cheap" throughout any of its revisions; on the contrary, PS3 was always more expensive than XB360 and your attempt to claim otherwise just proves once again that you have no idea what you're talking about.

Your claim about XB360 moving on first is also false. PS4 actually launched a few weeks before XB1, so the PS3 technically moved on first.

If Final Fantasy Legend gets excluded from your best Final Fantasy rankings due to not being a real Final Fantasy game, then Tetris Attack should be excluded here.

@Banjo- I doubt anyone has solid numbers on how many PS3s were purchased as replacements, but if you're suggesting that the PS3 had a bigger problem with defective units than the XB360 then you don't know what you're talking about.

The Switch far exceeds the PS2 when launch aligned, so the idea that PS2 is only ahead (worldwide) because it played DVDs is completely false. The real reason PS2 is ahead is because it sold somewhere between 40-50 million after the PS3 launched (and no one was buying PS2 as a cheap DVD player in 2006). I don't think Switch will do that well post Switch 2 launch (unless it costs $599), but I easily see it doing another 15 million.

A localization of Destiny 2 (the real one, not Eternia) would be nice. Maybe the Narikiri Dungeon spinoff of Phantasia too, since it was notable enough to get a full remake on PSP.

@Jhena In Japan Christmas is actually more of a couples' holiday, sort of like Valentine's Day in America. New Years is when families exchange gifts.

Nintendo always does very well in December, but then usually falls behind Sony in January. If I had to guess, I'd say it's because Switch is more popular to gift directly, but Playstation is more popular among the people who receive money/gift cards. I fully expect that to happen again, and for the usual suspects to fearmonger about how Nintendo is doomed yet again.

@JalapenoSpiceLife Try reading the article. Hacking data is not the issue; selling the hacked data is.

@Mariotag Ubisoft decided to make a Yasuke, a black man who lived in feudal Japan for a few years, the protagonist of their upcoming Assassin's Creed game. This is a strange choice given that previous AC games always had a fictional native of the region as the protagonist, but on top of that Ubisoft claimed that Yasuke's depiction as a samurai in the game is based on real life, when all the historical evidence shows that he was nothing more than a bodyguard and swordbearer for Nobunaga (essentially the samurai version of a knight's squire). And of course, the usual false accusations of gamers being racist followed when people rightly pointed out the blatant historical revisionism that Ubisoft was trying to pull.

And yes, it was Ubisoft that said "gamers need to get comfortable with not owning your games."

@Agenerationofgens This right here is probably the best reason ever for a company, like Nintendo, to remain completely debt free, despite the fearmongering of some economists about how debt is somehow a good thing. Those low interest rate loans that Blackrock and Vanguard pressure companies into qualifying for are irrelevant if you have no need for loans to begin with.