Japanese Sales Charts: Tales of Vesperia Sells Best on PS4, But PlayStation Hardware Plummets

A few third party games seem to have followed this pattern: sold better on Switch in the West and better on PS4 in Japan. It's very odd.

"Only one new release made it into the latest Japanese sales charts, and that was Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition."

Software sales

1. [NSW] New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (Nintendo, 01/11/19) – 166,303 (New)

@rjejr PLAYSTATION WEBSITE

With all the data that has come out recently - still do not understand whay anyone thinks Japan hardware sales matters.

Another old game on Switch - shocking (and with same sale numbers as WiiU ). Tales, didn't even match 1st week sales on the Xbox 360 gazillion years ago 🙃

Judgement still doing well (can't wait for US release)... Kingdom Hearts 3 and AC7 only game I care about in January.

Generally thought the Switch version of Tales would outsale the PS4

@Ralizah Dragon Quest Builders 2 actually sold better on PS4 initially but now has been overtaken by Switch. Weird.

I find this quite normal for Japan. Would take a hugely popular game to effect sales positively in Japan. And then it'd be back to 15-20k a few weeks later. Just how it goes.

Only thing I could see effecting sales long term would be a very slim and light PS4. These sort of things seem to be very popular to that market.

Sony is going to lose the whole Japanese market next coming generation if they don't think of ways to entice their home market. I have a feeling PS5 they are going to go to try much harder in order to corner and recapture the Japanese market.

@Agramonte yeah, curiosity about console sales in the country where the majority of the console industry still comes from is pretty weird. :V

@manu0 It'll be interesting to see what the legs on the different versions of Vesperia are like.

@ShogunRok THEN WHY ARE YOU COVERING SWITCH GAMES? AND WHY ARE WE YELLING?

4. [NSW] Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition (Limited Edition Included) (Bandai Namco, 01/11/19) – 26,588 (New)

@rjejr I DON'T KNOW

I still think Sony has a companion handheld secretly in development....

Tales selling better on PS4 in Japan makes sense to me, since like 2010 it's been a PlayStation Exclusive series so the fanbase is there. People that like the series will own a PS4 and are used to playing the series at home.

@Kidfried As far as I'm concerned there were no new releases last week, one's a port of a PS3 game, one a port of a Wii U Game, hence nothing new.

Not too surprised that the Nintendo Switch is doing so well, it's a killer console/handheld/whatever. I am a bit surprised at how well NSMBU is doing though. While I also bought the game and personally feel it's the best one in the series (obviously not counting Mario 3 or Mario World, just the New SMB games) I honestly figured it would do okay. It's doing MORE than okay, according to what I read, it finally knocked Smash Bros Ultimate out of the top sales. That's kind of impressive for a Wii U re-release.

Even more surprising is Vesperia doing better on PS4 than Switch.... I would have assumed playing it on the go would be a huge selling point. Personally though, I plan to get it on PS4 myself. While there's virtually no graphical differences, I don't know if the Switch is the best platform for a long RPG, even though it has games like Xenoblade Chronicles 2 already on it and it can easily be docked for long session. I don't know, Vesperia just feels right for PS4 I guess.

If I had to guess why people are going PS4 with Vesperia, it's because a lot of Tales games release on Sony consoles so that's probably where the majority of the fanbase is. Vesperia itself was given a PS3 release in Japan.

Also LOL@ the Xbone sales. That's just hilarious.

In terms of turning the tables around it’s either RE2R or KH3 one of these may change things for PlayStation in 🇯🇵 temporarily.

The Xbox One had a huge holiday as well, shifting 53 units, but went back down to 12 after holiday season.

As far as Tales games that NEED a translation released in the west... from a now over 20 year fan of the series, and Aside from the new Tales being worked on, forget Xillia and stuff already out and released here... we NEED to see Tales of Destiny Remake, Tales of Destiny 2(the sequel not Eternia), Tales of Rebirth, and Tales of Phantasia: Nariki Dungeon x, and the Vita Tales of Innocence R translated and released here.

I own all of them in Japanese and will be buying Nariki and Innocence R soon. These need translations and or "remakes" more than ANYTHING else. From a long time fan, these NEED a official translation and release. Even if it ends up a stupid downloadable "classic" they need to be brought here!

That is all.

@nhSnork Because you do not need it to dominate "the console industry"

https://variety.com/2019/gaming/news/ps4-clears-91-6-million-systems-876-million-games-sold-1203102158/

why "the majority of the console industry" looks West. Have you not noticed that Big Japanese publishers have Western Studios but not the other way around.

Even the entire Indie scene Nintendo loves to promote on the Switch has little to do with the Japanese market

Nah the sales in japan vs western market isn’t surprising - plenty of PlayStation gamers in Japan tend to play jrpgs since they’re the biggest seller in japan, while in the western market Nintendo gamers are the main consumer of jrpg style games

@GarySan To be honest, it doesn't matter. Their biggest markets are outside of Japan. I'm sure Sony has accepted that and aren't bothered in the slightest. They did pretty well there with the PS4 all things considered, and the same will be for the PS5. Japan just loves the on the go gaming. Hence why the Switch sells good there. Even Vita as bad as it did globally, did quite well in Japan.

@InsertUsername I think the biggest reason why they would want to maintain relevant at home is because it is their biggest differentiator to the Xbox. If they lose the market a lot of Japanese developers will no longer support the console and that's not something Sony would want.

@GarySan Japanese developers will support them no matter what. They've always sold well in Japan despite changes there over the years. Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts and the like that are a staple on PS platforms will always keep them relevant. Keep in mind that even if they didn't have Japan, PS is a much more stronger brand globally than the Xbox Brand. So, I doubt Sony has anything to worry about. As long as they do what they've done this gen, they'll keep their momentum going. Only way they can screw this up is if they pull another PS3 launch moment.