Famitsu reveals handheld and console sales are at lowest point ever in Japan

famitsu-japanese-market-2014

While the gaming world in the West is doing pretty well with both handhelds and consoles, the story is quite a bit different in Japan. The chart above was published by Japanese gaming publication Famitsu and it showcases just how far handheld and console sales have fallen since smartphones and tablets took off in Japan. In fact, Japan consumes most of its gaming content via mobile, rather hand handheld or console gaming.

In fact, the highest point on the chart for both hardware and software sales came in 2007, which is coincidentally the same year that Apple released the iPhone, revolutionizing the smartphone business as we know it. Japan did not receive the iPhone until 2008 and since then, both software and hardware sales for Japan are steadily moving down.

This isn’t really surprising to see given the prevalence of mobile gaming in Japan, but it does serve to illustrate why the Wii U, PlayStation 4, and to some degree the Xbox One have had trouble selling well in Japan. While games continue to sell well in the West, this will undoubtedly have an effect on the types of games that are produced in the future.

Famitsu also released a quick look at hardware sales over the 2014 year, which showed which platforms were the most successful for the year. The sales for 2014 are the first number, while total unit sales for the lifetime of the product are in parenthesis.

  1. 3DS – 3,153,045 (17,847,056)
  2. PSV – 1,147,936 (3,423,075)
  3. PS4 – 925,570
  4. Wii U – 604,856 (2,123,283)
  5. PS3 – 450,034 (10,018,534)
  6. One – 45,958