We all know Splatoon is a phenomenon in Japan, and that Sony’s situation in its domestic market is “challenging” to put it politely. But the latest Famitsu sales report will surely be sobering for the top brass at PlayStation, as its consoles slumped to just 1.5 per cent of the overall market share for the week ending 11th September, 2022.
Now there are mitigating factors at play here: the PS5 is about to get its much-maligned price increase, and therefore shipments were practically non-existent during the period, while the PS4 borders on statistical error these days. Meanwhile, the release of Splatoon 3, as alluded, sent the Nintendo Switch OLED model into overdrive; the game, for those curious, sold almost two million physical copies.
In total, 2,875 PlayStation consoles were flogged throughout the week, compared with 182,950 Nintendo systems. As you’d anticipate, the software top ten was also utterly dominated by evergreen Switch titles, although the PS4 version of Earth Defense Force 6 did manage to break up the overall Nintendomination. Tough week!
[source famitsu.com, via gematsu.com]
Comments 40
And Nintendo don't need CoD to do it either. It doesn't do any harm that they have Zelda, Mario Kart and Splatoon, of course.
I'm very interested to see what PlayStation's upcoming online games are going to look like.
Splatoon 3 just enjoyed the biggest video game launch of all time in Japan, from what I hear. It sold 3.45 mil copies in three days there.
And xbox's was 0.21 percent
Obviously both had supply issues last week.
Bots are going to be on Twitter saying it's because of the price increase, they're incredibly predictable.
@Sqush-Pare so what's their excuse? Series combined sold just over 400
@SinfulDestroyer I do, and so do many others who enjoy jrpgs, souls games, and have the best fighting games such as tekken and street fighter, and square enix who are sonys biggest supporters right now.
PS5 is currently my most played console and sometimes I do think Sony bring things on themselves.
Console price increase
Expensive games
Size of console(important in Japan)
Console shortages
PS5 is doing great overall worldwide, but they really need to get a bit more customer focused or friendly.
They have the Switch to left of them doing very well and seems to keep going on and on.
Then to the right, a trillion dollar company having a right go at the Sony market share and being so customer friendly it’s like getting cuddles 😂 and buying up studios all over the show.
I just hope Sony don’t do a TV thing, once top dog and now third to Samsung and LG sales wise, because that would seriously effect their amazing AAA single player game output I think.
Sony not getting it all its own way this generation, but they have asked for some of it due to businesses decisions.
Last weeks sales
Nintendo took USA, PS5 second with Xbox only 2k behind.
PS5 took Europe but wow it’s a lot closer than it used to be.
And of course we know Nintendo is king in Japan by about 80K.
I just hope Sony don’t self harm themselves to much.
It's Japan + Splatoon 3.. 2875 units could be considered a success
I find funny that Ramsey writes the good stuff in both ways, good stuff about what happens PS related and good stuff to read overall.
And Sammy ... well he writes these kind of "news" and "reactions". No other site from this family writes so many times how "doomed" is their situation. Just this one and just Sammy boy. 😂😂😂
Pointless to even discuss this anymore. PlayStation, for a good while now, has been as Western a brand as Xbox. PS5 will obviously get Japanese games, even some niche ones, but that market has moved on and so has Sony.
we all know there are chip issues,
surely its more beneficial to know if what is shipped is selling? if its selling out, it is what it is. if 12k were available and 3k were sold, that would raise more questions imo
@Sqush-Pare Well it certainly isn't helping Sony's already strained relationship in Japan. If anything they should have lowered the PS5 in their ex homeland as a nice gesture to the country that put them on the map and provided PlayStation with some of the best games ever.
Anyone know what the previous week was? Just curious for reference.
@juanalf you do realise how much the yen has dropped in value to the $ (along with most currencies) so makes that hard, also i could be wrong but didnt ps5 work out cheaper in Japan originally
Haven't fired up my PS5 in a couple of months. Finished Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and going back to play the first two for the first time. Can't wait for GOWR
@stvevan even after the price raise, the console is still cheaper in Japan than it originally was in the west.
Sony don’t care. This is evident through the sheer lack of respect they’ve shown the Japanese gaming development community since at least 2016. Those in charge of PlayStation seem embarrassed and ashamed by their Japanese heritage and intent on erasing all sign of it.
@Shepherd_Tallon What, but Jim Ryan said without CoD their entire business will collapse and they will vanish off the face of the earth. Do you mean to say you can still have a successful console if you just, I don't know, make good games??? Now that's just crazy talk 😂🤣
@BartoxTharglod Do we have solid numbers on how much Splatoon 3 has sold in the UK? Because it topped the charts last week.
@ralizah it got 21st best ever release for a switch game in UK, but as @bartoxtharglod says, no figures.
@uptownsoul bit harsh your post was deleted, criticism shouldnt just be deleted and should be taken on board, unless it is abusive etc
@Shepherd_Tallon Without COD Sony only have rubbish like God of War, Horizon, Last of Us, Uncharted. Who wants to play that garbage? Not even sure why they bothered with that State of Play as it was definitely lacking some COD. Just give me more COD straight into my veins Jim before Microsoft take PlayStation off life support.
Any gaming company focusing on 4K, Spiderman and VR are not thinking about Japan.
Playstation Headquarter is in California... Most of their studios are in the West. They have moved on.
I am still getting every 3rd party Japanese Game I grew up playing on PS (and tons of new ones) so nothing has changed.
@thefourfoldroot1
Well since ps2 it is more like japanese players stopped buying playstation consoles.
So only natural to move on when players do it.
Not even Switch has really great numbers in Japan.
They play mobile games mostly now in Japan.
Sony owns the mobile game that brings most money in Japan, Fate game.
Maybe thats why Sony buys more in mobile studios to grown even more in Japan.
The previous four weeks sales figures for the PS5 in Japan where 20,292, 25,009 ,16,055, 46,700 so clearly, they ran out of stock, but you know angst post gets clicks
@BartoxTharglod Interesting. I wonder if that's a typical sort of spread for physical game sales in the U.K.. IF Splatoon 3 topped the charts with such low unit sales, it makes we wonder how other releases are performing, comparatively.
@UltimateOtaku91 Who knows? But considering Xbox Series S and X only sold 459 units combined in the same period I'm guessing it's related to the release of Splatoon.
@Enigk I was going to say, "I want to play those games" and "That State of Play was great".
Then I realised you were being sarcastic 😂
Anyone would of thought Sony had shifted it’s focus to western produced titles, pit all their prices up, had a bunch of 1st and 3rd party games delayed and then struggled to produce consoles.
I find I tend to like Japanese style gaming, and I have no desire to hunt after a PS5 to play the bunch of drab, samey 3rd person western sandbox games for seventy quid. Sony aren’t suffering in the West yet with sales as core gamers chase after PS5’s, but at the end of the generation I’m betting they’ve lost a big part of the market by limiting their variety.
@Shepherd_Tallon I get ehat you are referring to but Nintendo are very much in their own niche not competing with Microsoft and Sony. Certainly in the west Call of Duty is the best selling game each and every year. It makes more money for the platform holders than all 1st party titles combined every year. It is practically a genre in its own right and its positionnas market leader is basically unassailable at this point due to brand recognition. If one platform holder has it as exclusive or even significant feature improvements- in 4/5 years time when the next gen console cycle is at the point or fully switching over like this one is as the UK Competition market authority correctly says in their report; all evidence suggests it would basically hand the owner of that advantage market dominance in terms of both hardware and subscriptions. Thus it woukd lead to a defacto monopoly. The fact that they intend to effectively give away the game and by their own admission it wouldn't be profitable doing so (like most ifnthe game pass model) says it all. They take market control and monopolise it. Due to the high cost og entry that then allows them control of the market and they hike up games pass prices and basically no one has a choice at that point. Microsoft 101. They have over 30 years of predetatory business practices its all rather well documented. (Just look what they have in recent years done to antirvirus market. They exploit the ubiquity of Windows OS which has a borderlime monopoly because it is genuinely one of the best solutions most of thr time. The money this side of rhe business makes sustains everything else. That is what is so wrong about the purchase really. Could Microsoft gaming division have created games pass, eaten all the losses that took and I suspect still technically takes. Bought out major publishers and thus stakeholders but not quite competitors.
Come on Sammy. Try a bit. Xbox was a hell of a lot worse. Don't you be worrying about Sony
@extermin8or_ I agree with everything you've said and I've said similar myself in the past.
The only point I'm making here is that it won't be the end of everything if PlayStation loses CoD.
Nintendo used to compete directly with PlayStation and lost, then they repositioned themselves and leaned on their internal franchises. Now they have their own "safe for now" corner of the market.
PlayStation can do the same. They're going to have to and I believe that this is what they are working towards with their new online titles, because they can't bank long term on third party anymore - We're in a world where trillion dollar corps can apparently buy up any third party ip.
Edit: I completely agree with your points on competition authorities and monopolies.
Sony suffering in Japan due to the lack of a handheld - who'd have thought it?
In all seriousness, Sony have been lurching from one disaster to another from the end of the PS4 era and all the way into the PS5 era with regards to their Japanese heritage.
Jimbob and Herman Muster shutting down Japan Studio was the last slap in the face as PlayStation became a Western mockery of its former self. What have we got since? About 5 exclusive (soon to be on PC) PS5 games in TWO years while PS icons like Everybody's Golf leave the platform behind, concentrating on the mobile market and the Switch.
Sony are riding high on their in-demand console but without some of the PS' best known titles to flesh out it's market appeal, I do worry about what happens to the company I used to like and admire so much.
I don't understand why some people here are glad that Sony has given up on the Japanese market.
Sony abandoned japan so japan abandoned sony 😕
My logical, but based on no hard information, assumption is that BOTH Sony and Microsoft (who only sold 459 units) were holding back stock for TGS week. Will be interesting to see if these bounce back the following 2 weeks.
wiiware wrote:
True. It's difficult to say which came first, chicken or egg. Probably a bit of both.
It's certainly true that Japanese gamers, as a larger whole, mostly abandoned TV based consoles (including Sony) in favour of handhelds. But even the VITA sales dropped off 78% in only it's second week in Japan and never really recovered. Sad times.
I do feel a handheld PS4 that could play all PSN PS4 games could do great. But sadly don't see Sony doing this as they would primarily want to embrace new sales not enabling existing libraries.
We can argue about Sony and Japan all day long, but honestly Splatoon 3 is just a really solid and addictive multiplayer game with an immense amount of style to back it up. This is a case of a fantastic game gaining huge amounts of traction, whereas Sony and MS for that matter haven’t offered up a bonafide big release in a while. Part of Nintendo’s current success is that they remember games need to be fun first and then the details come after. I’ve said it before, but so much of the industry is flopping (the numerous F2P disasters, Halo, etc) because developers aren’t prioritizing what made so many games huge successes. I hope Sony has fun in mind with their onslaught of future live service titles. Curious if GoW will make any impact on the Eastern markets though.
I'm still massively impressed with the way Splatoon has embedded itself as a key Nintendo franchise in such a short space of time.
I wish Nintendo would experiment like this more often. It's a wonderful series.
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