PS5 Can't Beat Pokémon, But It's Selling Well in Japan Right Now

~25 million Switches being sold in a country with 125 million people is bonkers. 1 in 6 people have a Switch (or slightly less than that but some people have 2)

Even more absurd, there are only 55 million households in Japan. So nearly 1 in 2 houses have a Switch (well, a bit less as some houses definitely have 2)

@ThomasHL it’s a (weak)portable mobile game device instead of an actual console so it’s no wonder it sells so much there . it’s also the reason why sonic frontiers feels like a portable game on PS5

Just shows you no matter how dog poo a state they release pokemon in it sells, jesus that game 🤣 it literally looks like a PS1 game.

Has PS5 ever sold poorly in Japan? The impression I've had is that sales largely mirrored stock availability. Why wouldn't they? What's not being purchased by actual interested gamers will be snapped up by re-sellers. The scalping situation might have calmed down at this point, but I'm sure there's still a thriving secondhand market for these devices.

@ThomasHL Several houses def have more than 2. Switch is very much a 'one per person' device in many households, despite its ability to function as a home console.

@Fenbops Mmmm, no. It's a rough looking game in spots, but no rational person with functioning eyeballs would ever mistake it for a PS1 game, lol.

@Ralizah okay PS2 then.

So much salt in here already 🤣

I'm expecting some more good numbers for PS5 and FF16, is there anything in-between then for PS4/5?

@eltomo Forspoken is in Feb or March i think? And Resident Evil 4 and Yakuza Ishin remakes should sell well

Wo Long Fallen Dynasty might perform well in March too, and if Street Fighter 6 has been rated, that could be out in the sping too

The 3 Switch models sold almost 100k more units in one week than the rest of the chart combined. This is insane for almost 7-year-old hardware. I feel like Nintendo is supported on a patriotic level in Japan. Compare it to Maple Syrup in Canada or Ram Trucks in the USA.

It's actually sad that a game as bad as Scarlet/Violet sells so much. I am one to blame, i bought it, played for 1 hour, never played again. What a ridiculous mess.
Gamefreak is one of the worst devs in the world imo, at least one of the laziest.
But oh well, it was to be expected that Pokemon would sell so much, that's why they now do yearly releases...in this case we got 2 games in the same year.

@Rob_230 nice, three games you've mentioned on my radar. Might start being on the lookout for a PS5 myself.

Nintendo could also add a sim card to the switch and anyone would stop bying smartphones at this point in Japan.

NANI!!!??? But fanboys on the internet said that no one wants it out there so it must be true 😱😱😱

For context, Splatoon 3 had the biggest video game launch of all time in Japan. A few weeks later, Pokemon Violet/Scarlet one-upped it by a significant percentage.

Is PS5 tracking ahead of what PS4 was doing at the same point in Japan?

I love the Switch but the Pokemon situation makes me so sad. The only way there would be any real change is if the poor optimisation leads to poor sales, but if anything the opposite is happening! It's a real shame for a series that has the potential to be absolutely astounding, but always just aims for a barely passing grade.

@BranJ0 Unfortunately that's Pokémon fans for you they have no standards it absolutely sucks I grew up with the series since it started and I bailed out a Sun and Moon never return because it's clear they don't care anymore and never will because as you say the beyond low quality doesn't translate to poor sales. People get so immeasurable angry online at the Devs but then at launch run out like wooloo's and buy it in the tens of millions they know the Devs know this so it'll never get better 😕

@grapetrap Japan always support their Home companies first, it's why Xbox has never made it big there.

@Keyblade-Dan I bailed out when they started releasing Polmont like Trubbish.
I remember playing Red, blue and Yellow in the school playground. Charizard cards were banned at my school because people kept fighting over them, and that was just the teachers.

@SolaceCreed 😂😂😂

@ThomasHL I've got a friend whose household has 4 switches! Him, his wife and his daughter, plus an oled one he bought and regrets a bit

@Fenbops I think somebody needs to look up the word literally.

Pokémon is actually pretty good under the mess sorta like Cyberpunk which makes it even more sad they couldn’t give it some extra polish.

@HeeHo I’ve seen some of the textures in that game and they’re literally PS1 quality. Truly awful.