www.videogameschronicle.com
So who will they support then, Xbox? Best send Phil on another business trip.
small and mid tiers company don't have the budget for high production values so they can easily put their game on switch iif they wanna caer to tha japanese market.
Don’t forget PC either. I think PC is a better option in getting into the Microsoft ecosystem then the Xbox. Least you don’t have to worry about there being not enough Japanese titles and you still get all the Xbox exclusives.
Mobile gaming and Switch I’m assuming.
Switch will be the main platform for the smaller companies that are still focused on the domestic market (and maybe PS4 when it is still relevant). I think they'll wait until PS5 has built up a sizeable userbase before moving over fully, and that could take some time depending on supply/software lineup
My understanding is that the PC gaming market is still very small in Japan. PC will be better for those larger companies looking at international sales (we're seeing Sega/Atlus starting to do this and hopefully they continue).
Its more to do with the performance of Sony rather than the performance of the console market. In Japan, Sony is seeing decline as they heavily rely on third parties there, and third parties have not been doing a job of making popular software in the domestic market in recent years. In the West however, Sony is growing even thought the console market as a whole is shrinking (how big the shrink is depends on whether you include the Wii or not).Not Sony, the whole Japanese home console market shrinked over years, moving into handhelds and specially mobile. At the same time, the western home console market continued growing, so obviously the primary focus of home console manufacturers and game publishers shifted from Japan to the west.
But obviously Sony and both the western and Japanese devs will continue supporting PS5 in Japan, because Japan continues being a decent market and PlayStation will continue being the clear market leader of the high end consoles, as PS4 has been during its generation.
PS5 is having record gaming history launch window worldwide sales, but it launched in more countries at the same time than previous console. This means they had less consoles available than before for each country that isn't a top market for them, because they obviously prefer to focus on their main markets.
The demand is insane and even if they are producing in gaming history record levels too, every new shipment gets sold out in minutes everywhere (in Japan too). They are producing all the units they can, so can't ship more units so can't sell more units on Japan.
So no, Sony isn't ignoring Japan. They are only sending less units than before there because it's a less important market and they can't send more units there because they are getting record sales worldwide, so prefer to send more units to their top markets, where MS is also a bigger competition so Sony will want to secure their market share there instead of in Japan where MS never had an important market share so they don't need to worry about it.
In addition to this, the games they released until now for PS5 are more focused to a western market because the west is the main market of the home consoles. It doesn't feature a traditional big seller in Japan, so doesn't make sense to expect sales from people who maybe bought a game before being able to buy a console (and well, most people won't buy games for a console they can't buy because it's sold out).
This is just something temporal. As Sony gets enough time to ship several millions of consoles to fit the insane worldwide demand that is there for PS5 and the situation goes back to normal, sales will come back to normal numbers.
No company will switch from making games on PlayStation to make them on Switch. First because high end games will need the powerful hardware of PS5 and can't run on Switch. And because low end games than can run in smaller hardware will still prefer PS4+PS5 during several years because its install base is like twice as big as the Switch one, and taking into consideration that PS4 is the best selling console ever at this lifetime point and PS5 is the best selling console ever at its lifetime point doesn't make sense to leave PS.
Edit: look at this other thread to see if Japanese are interested on PS5 or not:
Complete Chaos At Tokyo Retailer Over PS5 Sales
https://kotaku.com/complete-chaos-in-tokyo-retailer-over-ps5-sales-1846164340?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=dlvrit&utm_content=kotaku Early today, the Yodobashi Camera electrics megastore in Akihabara, one of the biggest in the country, sold a huge shipment of PS5...www.neogaf.com
PlatinumGames says it doesn’t expect Japanese creators to shun PS5 | VGC
A recent report accused Sony of “not taking Japan seriously” amid low launch figures…
I just don't see it happening for Microsoft. Maybe the Xbox brand will see some success on the PC through GamePass, but as far as the consoles are concerned, it's really just between Nintendo and PlayStation.
Switch is like 18m now in Japan.
Yeah, it's getting close to outselling the PS2 in Japan and then the Game Boy and DS.
I was talking in worldwide numbers, because most game companies release their games worldwide: PS4 is 113.6M and Switch is 68.3M as of September 30th, the most recent numbers we have. PS4 also was released around mid November and sold as of Dec 28th 4.2M worldwide, and PS5 oulsold it.
PC market grew a bit in Japan in the recent years, but mostly its F2P side. As happens worldwide, F2P gaming market is bigger than the paid games one. But the difference in Asia in F2P vs paid is bigger, and particularly in China, Korea or in a bigger scale, Japan (not only due to PC, but also due to mobile).
You're right about Xbox declining in Japan too, I should have mentioned that. The issue for many Japanese third party publishers is that recently they have believed they have to focus on either Japan or the West (we've seen this in comments from Harada). In reality, its perfectly possible to make games that are popular in Japan, the rest of East Asia, and the West.
And with almost double the userbase, the Switch moves less 3d party software than the Ps4, with the games that are published on both platforms usually selling about the same on both of them. Many titles has seen decreasing sales passingvfrom the Vita to the Switch . I really don't understand why people seems to think that Nintendo can be the saviour of japanese 3rd party developers
Give me examples of 3rd party software selling less than PS4 day to date in Japan.
Why are you talking about the Switch in a PS5 thread? Of course japanese third parties will support the switch
The Switch by itself won't save Japanese third parties (game direction and game quality are also very important) but the general argument is that publishers are leaving a lot of money on the table if they don't take advantage of its large install base. As you said yourself, when games come out on both PS4 and Switch, the Switch versions usually sells a significant amount. A few examples:
MagnesG
just seen your post and think this will be relevant to you.
The only difference between Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft in Japan is that Nintendo now has the handheld monopoly and Japan is maybe the only market in the world where they always prefered portables over home consoles and that difference became larger over time. Handhelds always have been very important in Japan, but now they are way more.
These are the sales for Japan only, but 3 of these 4 games are games sold/focused to a worldwide market so instead of looking at their Japanese sales we should look at their global sales.
What were they thinking? This console is an absolute monstrosity for most households in Japan.
PlatinumGames says it doesn’t expect Japanese creators to shun PS5 | VGC
A recent report accused Sony of “not taking Japan seriously” amid low launch figures…
And that's where you're wrong.
The form factor plays a part, but software is a much more important factor. After all 3DS, DS, Vita, PSP and the Switch all have handheld form factors, but their sales curves and total sales are very very different due to their very different software release schedule.
It's exactly that kind of thinking that has led Japanese third parties astray. You don't have to choose between the West and the East when you can make games for both (plus any assumptions that Japan will become a death market have also been proven wrong).
This is like saying that the American games market is split into either sports simulators or kiddie games. It's not remotely true.
It's close to true for western markets too, it's just that it's not as severe here yet for various reasons, and for us the mobile market didn't overtake traditional markets, it's just in addition (but still bigger). Just check how much money mobile makes vs consoles/PC, then discount COD & sports & minecraft/robolox and let's see how much is left. Bet you it's not that much either, but again - not as severe as Japan.
Tried to find those numbers to do a calculation but many of them are behind a paywall unfortunately.
L O L you guys crack me up, care to post examples of said companies?
www.dualshockers.com
www.gematsu.com
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