PS4 software ecosystem in Japan is depressing no matter which period you're using. Not a single evergreen and one-off games that usually chart for a few weeks. Homogenous audience which limiti its hardware sales.
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Media Create Sales: Week 27, 2019 (Jul 01 - Jul 07)
- Thread starter Chris1964
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PS4 software ecosystem in Japan is depressing no matter which period you're using. Not a single evergreen and one-off games that usually chart for a few weeks. Homogenous audience which limiti its hardware sales.
Legs happen through used market and digital sales which are both more significant on the PS4 than on the Switch. And this has always been true so I'm not sure why you're just now choosing to be depressed about it.
Is used market more significant on Sony platforms than Nintendo ones? Proof? MC 2017 data show a big share of PS4 games but PS4 is a mature platform while Switch was relatively new so the comparison is not really apt; 3DS used market is pretty big indeed so Switch is expected to reach big numbers too: https://www.resetera.com/threads/media-create-sales-cy-2017-2017-jan-02-2017-dec-31-new-used.66944/
Digital surely is greater on PS4 than on Switch but does this change what I said? Which PS4 did show legs in the used market or in digital sales? How big they were?
Physical sales are still a valid proxy to judge a platform's ecosystem in Japan.
The situation seems to change a bit. This generation SQEX went from "we will safe the Japanese console market." by putting everything on PlayStation including Dragon Quest, to a more balanced approach with more consideration of Nintendo and post FF6 mainline games for the first time is an important sign of change even though these ports of old games. More Japan focused developers that haven't supported Nintendo systems also started to put their games on Switch. KoeiTecmo also wasn't exactly very supportive until recently but are nowadays putting almost everything on Switch. BandaiNamco is by far the most prolific Japanese publisher on Switch, even putting IPs for the very first time on a Nintendo system. Your point that most Japanese publishers seem to follow almost blindly PlayStation is true, but even though Switch is still often a second thought for new games, it almost seems like they need more and more Switch games because the Japanese market clearly has become far less sustainable for PlayStation exclusivity.
Are you ignoring the second part of the quote regarding Software sales being higher than 3DS, despite you saying decline, on purpose because it doesn't fit your argument?
Software sales are stronger than 3DS. No decline from 3DS to Switch in Japan in that regard. Only hardware is declining. The reasons are known.
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Many Japanese third parties that were absent from Nintendo systems before jumped on Switch this generation. The loyalty you mention exists in a way but the companies that are trully devoted to Sony are counted in the fingers of a single hand and are so small scale that almost nobody will notice if they go down.
The reason Switch lacks AA and AAA support from Japan has more to do with the way Japanese developers ignore Nintendo systems for specific type of games more than a decade and aren't in position yet to accept the change. There isn't more obvious example than Bandai Namco.
Citations required.
Also the used market is functionally the opposite of legs lol. Publishers get no money for that.
"Digital" and "Used" markets appear to be the new "West" and "Asia".
What big Switch games came out in the same window besides the just launched SMM2? Labo VR? FF ports? Yokai Bomb 4?
Pointing to digital is fine. I agree there is a segment of sales we cant account for there. Used market however has existed for every system ever. It's not an excuse for any systems weak ever green performance. It's just not. Used does not justify PS4 poor sales.
The ever increasing digital growth will be a welcome change for publishers. Individual sales are more profitable. The PS5 digital ratio will be far higher then the PS3 ratio for example. They'll need to sell less copies to make the same revenue.
At a time when the market isn't growing this will be a much needed boost. I'd love to know how high the digital share will get by the end of the PS5 gen. Should this impact the second hand market too? Less physical copies to trade in.
At a time when the market isn't growing this will be a much needed boost. I'd love to know how high the digital share will get by the end of the PS5 gen. Should this impact the second hand market too? Less physical copies to trade in.
"Legs" just seems to be something really weird to point to and I have never understood.
Total software sales is what matters. However long it takes a title to reach said total software sales doesn't matter. Having long "legs" can certainly help a title continue to acquire software sales later in its shelf lives, but if a title sells 3 million copies in its first month and then never charts again vs a title that sells 3 million eventually via 'legs', they both still reached 3 million. Neither one is better or worse than the other.
Total software sales is what matters. However long it takes a title to reach said total software sales doesn't matter. Having long "legs" can certainly help a title continue to acquire software sales later in its shelf lives, but if a title sells 3 million copies in its first month and then never charts again vs a title that sells 3 million eventually via 'legs', they both still reached 3 million. Neither one is better or worse than the other.
It also depends how game streaming goes, which will also affect the physical vs digital split.
Yeah needing used sales to create legs really doesn't point to a vibrant ecosystem
I would say generally its more useful/relevant to a system's hardware momentum and overall ecosystem.
Indeed. I wonder will it be mainly digital gamers who shift to streaming or will that segment pull from physical gamers too?
We also know how bad Bamco is at that point with switch support. You can easily compare with other 3rd party to understand.
Hope for "good" reasons though.
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I'd be happy to use another metric. Since the financial year only started in April and it was after a lot of the major PS4 releases there isn't much data. But I don't know of another place adding total software sales by platform. If you have another source I would be glad to use it.
But the fact that there have been no major hits since April and that evergreen titles are rare on the platform is kind of the point I am making with regard to the platforms software sales on a downward trend.
My original post was in response to this:
I agreed there there were some heavy hitters early in the year but that in general I didn't see data that supported that software sales were quite strong. If you have some better data to share I have no problem with being proven wrong.
I'd be curious to hear why you think that. Does having a healthy used game market for a system show a poor overall ecosystem? Does having a handful of titles from a single publisher that are routinely bought with a new purchase of a system make other software publishers think that the system has more 'momentum'?
Yeah, I understand. Though to elaborate, I'm not exactly talking about loyalty as in "full commitment" like Falcom or Spike Chunsoft. It's more like I'm aghast at the favoritism the industry is showing to PlayStation platforms. Like, even small things like console exclusivity, timed exclusivity, content exclusivity, marketing exclusivity, or even how companies publish games on different platforms (like Capcom refusing to publish physical games for Switch). If we're talking solely from a sales standpoint, then there is a lot that don't make sense. So like you and Vinnk, I'm just appalled at this situation. It's all about perception. Companies like Bandai Namco needs to accept that there is an audience for their games on the Switch platform. These companies' perception is what colors their bias, and that's driving me crazy. There are way too many decisions held back by archaic views and not actual data. These are companies that have far more insight than we do, yet why do their sheer stupidity never fail to amaze us at the same time? I'm really tired.
Welll.....I would say Switch titles still selling 2 years after release is a long term positive for that system's momentum as compared to a title that launches at 100K and then is gone from the charts in a month.
I don't see how this is at all controversial.
I really very much dislike Falcom's or Spike Chunsoft "commitment".
Sigh...
Whatever the reasons I just can't be ok with it.
And no, it's not about "AAA" only.
I'm mean, freaking ubisoft is bringing a considered AAA next year...
Really at this point there's something else.
Sigh...
Whatever the reasons I just can't be ok with it.
I wouldn't be so fast and say the Switch is gonna miss 7R.
And no, it's not about "AAA" only.
I'm mean, freaking ubisoft is bringing a considered AAA next year...
Really at this point there's something else.
Oh I agree. Nintendo games that are still selling 2 years after release is a long term positive for Nintendo. I thought we were arguing more in general terms of observance of third party software publishers/developers. Sorry for misunderstanding you.
I think the Games As A Service hype among western publishers is the most evident proof of that.
Well said! I am in almost total agreement with what you wrote out here.
*I had a much longer data filled add-on, but I figured it didn't need to be added after like 15-minutes of work haha*
No. Successful platforms usually have active and healthy used game markets. But other than pushing hardware sales and hyping sequels a good used market does not benefit the console manufactures or the devs. financially.
Perhaps not directly, but I think they have impact. Evergreens keep a platform in the mainstream conciseness and keeps the manufacturer profitable. This helps make for a healthy platform. No one wants to bring their titles to a system perceived to be a sinking ship (see WiiU).
Let's take an example from one of my friends. He bought a PS4 to play the Last of Us. He gave in because people kept talking about it for months and months. Had it been some flash in the pan hit game that sold a bunch and then went away he would probably not have bit the bullet and bought the PS4. He bought other games for his PS4 as well. 3rd party games. One of the reasons the PS4 is doing so well in the US and PAL is the Sony evergreen titles. They make people invest in the platform.
I think in a release environment where developers cannot put out as many games as they did back in the PS2, GBA, NDS, Wii days, the balance between legs and having strong weekly releases has heavily skewed towards evergreens. Look back at charts from 2005 to 2010 and be amazed at how every week consistently has a new title or titles opening strongly.
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Pointing to digital is fine as long as you have data to back up how high it really is and what percentage of total sales it gets every time.
Having great games for a system is of course important, but other than GTA V I can't think of a game with much of any staying power beyond the first 6 months or so on the NPD chart. I'm not sure we both have the same idea of what an evergreen title is, as GTA V is the only title I'd consider an evergreen for PS4 in the west. It's the only title that is still routinely being bought brand new way after its release. FIFA would be an evergreen if it didn't have a new release every single year, and I'd say the same for Call of Duty.
Good numbers for the Switch. I know I was pretty critical of the sales last week, surprised at the bump. Mario Maker dropped to expected levels. Will be interesting to see what happens next week, if the sales stay similar to this week.
Rainbow Six Siege
NBA 2K
CoD
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Red Dead Redemption 2
Spiderman
Maybe i just don't get what you are trying to say but yearly franchises like COD and NBA chart all year long and Even beyond that some times
I never spoke about a supposed software decline, that's why I'm ignoring it. It's not relevant to the hardware part of the decline, which was the main point of the discussion until then. I was only speaking about the hardware part of the market and software still going strong doesn't change the fact that handhelds are selling less and less with each new generation in Japan since the NDS.
So far, it was about handheld hardware. If you want to spread the argument across the whole market, be my guest. Just don't expect me to draw the correlation for you or follow through your weird attempt of moving the goalpost of the discussion.
I won't speak further about the Xbox brand, the console overall market or the worldwide gaming market, I prefer to say on the topic at hand, it makes the discussion less confusing. You were the one bringing it up, not me.
The Japan handheld market is in a constant decline for at least 6 years, over 3 models and I'm not even including the PSP to Vita. Of course I can speak about a decline, because that's what it is, objectively, regardless of the reasons.
I'm not ignoring the reasons you or other brought up, I just disagree with those reasons being the explanations behind the objective decline. Some think the decline could have been prevented by X and Y, I think it would have happened regardless. Despite all the "Sony mismanaged the Vita" arguments, I still think the Vita wouldn't have reach the height of the PSP for example. I also think the Nintendo 3DS would never have sold as much as the NDS (you admit it yourself), regardless of its initial price-point.
To clear things up.
An "evergreen" is not an evergreen if it only has a shelf life of one year by being replaced by its successor. Naturally this is due to the 'legs' argument. NBA2K18's legs get cut immediately once NBA2K19 is released. It's not an evergreen.
Rainbow Six Siege and Assassin's Creed Oddysey are not in the May NPD top 10 list for PS4.
Spider-man is one I admittedly overlooked. I think that's definitely the closest to a first-party evergreen title for the PS4.
RDR2 might make evergreen status but it still hasn't had the time yet to show true longevity of an evergreen.
While NPD is tracking digital, its in revenue and not in units.
Hence there might be a lot of evergreen PS 4 game sold at very low asp but Making tons of revenue through DLC and micro transaction
Also if you see the NA PSN top sellers you'll see a lot of Evergreen titles like the last of us
Yup, next meeting is in October, but we'll have data via the million-sellers list then.
Maybe if the game really does well we'll get a PR or even a celebration tweet, but not counting on that. Been a while since Nintendo last paraded sales data.
Last one was with Smash but since then they didn't get record-breaking titles to have this kind of PR
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Nintendo tweeted that Smash was the fastest selling Nintendo console game in Europe (tweet was since deleted) and Reggie said that the game sold 3m in only 11 days in the US :
In the last 12 months, Rainbow Six: Siege was seven times in the top 20 games by NPD. It's the third PlayStation 4 or Xbox One game with the best legs (after GTA V and Minecraft).
Otherwise, I don't understand the focus on evergreens. Of course Switch has more evergreens, because best selling games on this console are Nintendo games and Nintendo don't release a new game each month. So if you want the top 10 Nintendo games on this console, you will buy some games released one or two years before. On PlayStation 4 and on Xbox One (and also on PC), there are some new AAA every month and people buy a console for those games. It doesn't mean those games don't have a huge success, even if it is a short time.
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If you count everything, including Wii U ports, small projects and each new Labo kit, it's almost true (they miss two or three months each year). But they only release about one big game by quarter, which will sell well (200k+ in Japan) and sometimes some side projects between.
Wii U ports are big sellers.
They publish a ton each year, at least one retail game a month on average. They might have missed a month or two earlier this year, but in the span of a month they have Mario Maker, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Fire Emblem, and they're publishing DQB2 in the west
Yeah but if you exclude
Fire Emblem, I mean, it's niche, it doesn't matter
Marvel isn't a Nintendo game
DQB2 in the west? Irrelevant
Mario Maker 2? An enhanced port
Astral Chain is the usual filler that won't reach 500k WW
Daemon X Machina is bad
Animal Crossing was delayed to 2020
Pokémon is not made by Nintendo
Luigi doesn't even have a date yet
Nintendo rarely makes games.
Sure total software sales matter but if it takes a title reaching 1 million units only after multiple price cuts vs a title selling 1 million day 1. There is a clear is distinction and argument for one being superior.