Japanese Sales Charts: The PS4 Is Stuck in a Real Rut

Japan's love for cutesy crappy games is perplexing

This time last year the PS4 was turning in numbers of 5k-7k. This year it's bottoming out at 10k and the best selling console. When big hitters like Metal Gear Solid V and Persona 5 release, it will hit it's stride and have good few 30k+ week.

Sell almost 15k units, says things are looking bleak.

could be worse... It could be pulling 200/wk

*that should be bottoming out at 14k, which is pretty impress. In fact it's on course to sell 1m this year and match, or get very close, to PS4's 10m total.

Go Splatoon!! Go Rhythm Heaven!!

And I am not a fan of the doom and gloom of these articles. PS4 is selling like hotcakes in all the other markets, which are bigger anyway.

@get2sammyb but clearly numbers are down across the board, even the handhelds which has been consistently doing the best. We all know it's because the Japanese have moved on to mobile devices or whatever. Also we still see big spikes when software the Japanese cares about releases Like @sinalefa said, their other markets are larger. So opposed to just going mobile, these developers will do what it seems like they've been doing recently shift development styles to suit western gamers.

Which I suppose if you look at it, could be considered as part of the problem Japanese developers are not catering as much to their own audience anymore. I could be wrong on that point though, is that a fair assessment?

@get2sammyb looking again at your chart, what in the heck released that week in 2010 that had the 360 sell 5k units? Lol

@Sir_JBizzle

Correct. Look at those Yokai Watch or (to a lot of people's chagrin) AC Happy Home Designer games. Two weeks like this and the latter will pass the million, while the former already did and always does in their other games.

@get2sammyb

Going mobile at the expense of consoles (like Konami) seems to be the easy way out for some devs. If market is so small in Japan, they should be either suiting their games to Western gamers like @Sir_JBizzle says or (even better) working with publishers to push more localizations. Aren't JRPGs and indies what is keeping the Vita alive in the West?

I do hope Luminous Arc Infinity comes west, but I can't say these sales figures will help that cause. And that's all the way up at #5...

Looking at the EXCLUSIVE PS4 games Sony and 3rd parties have in store for the Japanese gamer things are looking very bleak. Pretty much all major titles till FFXV are playable on the PS3 and the industry in Japan is stuck; the more time it takes for Japense gamers to go new gen, the more behind Japanese devs will get, which will perpetuate the downward spiral we're in the last couple of years.

Japanese people simply have no reason till 2016 or 2017 to buy a PS4 and taking 3 years to get started for a console is too long of a time. What will this mean for the future? Will this generation last another 10 years again? At this rate that isn't impossible and given the current hardware, which isn't anywhere near as powerful as the PS3 was back then, it's not something I'm looking forward to.

I'm absolutely positive that an industry with Japanese developers taking the backseat and the few remaining big Japanese publishers and console manufacturers focussing too much on the West isn't something gamers should welcome. We won't see Sony making a real push in Japan because when it mattered they didn't/ couldn't and now they can it's too late. Maybe VR will miraculously catch on, but changes of that are really slim. Let's hope Nintendo's NX will get the Japanese on board once again, because we need them for some diversity in our games. The PS4 is out almost 2 years now and it's not just Sony that hasn't brought their A- game games-wise. For me this generation is extremely dull so far and lacking any of the magic the PS4's predecessors managed to bring and if this trend continues I won't be gaming on a PS5, that's one thing I know for sure.

@Boerewors Didn't it take the PS3 like 3 years before all the good stuff started coming in? Well, I'd say next year it will be the same way. The third year is looking pretty good especially with Uncharted 4 (hopefully) coming early 2016.

@Cyber-BLP-- those games you mentioned are actually some of my favourite, I'm talking about garbage like yo kai watch and animal crossing

@get2sammyb xbox is back to 2005 levels.

Poor consoles, Japanese gamers are losing out looking at their top 10 its just awful. Awful.

@Cyber-BLP-- yes it does, the marketing over in Japan is now mobile focused and its rare western releases get any visibility. Its a joke. I love Japan been over there, but the mags and websites are ran by the companies who give their own crappy games good scores. That's the problem.

@Cyber-BLP--
So it's ok to come here and b*tch that Naughty Dog and other companies don't make every single game bright and cheery, but it's not ok for @hYdeks or others to dislike Japanese games? Got it. Glad you're always here to clear things up.

@hYdeks @themcnoisy
I'd say that's a half decent top ten personally. Splatoon is one of the best games I've played in a long time, Fire Emblem, well, let's just say Awakening is one of my favorites of all time, if not THE favorite game of all time, and from what I hear Fates is even better, then you've got Minecraft, Mario Kart and Animal Crossing (the REAL Animal Crossing, not the Home Designer), which are all fabulous games, and Rhythm Heaven is a great rhythm game (if you're into the genre). Just ask @Sinalefa- he swears up and down by that franchise.

Does it really matter if it is selling in Japan? I mean, I understand it's their home and they want it to sell there, but it's on track to be the best selling home console of all time. I say who cares? Transformers did meh here In The states but crushed it in China and I don't see Michael Bay worrying.

@Ps4all

Well, to me it matters. The worse PS4 does in Japan, the greater the possibility more Japanese devs start leaving for the greener mobile pastures. We've already lost too many to that.

@Ps4all Because Capcom, Konami, Square Enix, Nintendo, Tecmo, Sega and Namco all hail from there. But you are right - the companies are not the same anymore so we should all move on.

It's second only to a device that costs less than half the price and has 4 and a half years worth of games. This is like comparing sales of a Audi A4 to a Peugot 206 or something like that. It's ahead of a console that's cheaper than it and does actually have a load of exclusive games (the Wii U, of course) somewhat undermining the "if only it had more exclusives" argument, although it's undeniably true that it does need that to really pull ahead.

I get the feeling the Japanese people want to like the PS4, they want to be excited for it - unlike the Xbone which is selling about as well as bags of Ebola. The PS4 is usually around 2nd or 3rd place in the charts even when there's not much in the way of exciting exclusives. It's like they're buying it in anticipation of something that doesn't seem to be arriving since Sony keep putting things out on the PS3 as well.

Let's not forget that the current undisputed champ, the 3DS, had a really rocky start in Japan and it took price cuts and various other moves by Nintendo to get it on track. Even now, across 5 distinctly different types of 3DS, the combined total sales aren't exactly stellar, but they got out of the doldrums at least.

@hYdeks just as perplexing as the Wests love for the FPS genre. Still, shouldn't we have gotten "deep down," by now.

most of the games they play in japan I really don't care for, maybe because I'm not japanese? I don't know. It's really japans loss, they try so hard to be different compared to the west. If phones got bigger in the west as they are in Japan, The japanese would move to something different. whatever, it doesn't bother me and really, I want western games mostly with a few japanese games if they're RPG based, otherwise to hell with the rest of their games

Pretty sure most Americans/Europeans don't give a damn if the Japanese like or dislike our games. A few here have mentioned they don't understand why the Japanese like what they like. There was nothing borderline racist just more venom spewing from a hypocrite.