Nintendo has now dominated Japanese sales for its 18th year in a row
Nintendo platforms have now dominated the Japanese sales charts for nearly two decades, 2022 data has revealed.
On Wednesday, Famitsu published its latest annual report on Japan’s software and hardware sales, revealing that nine of the top 10 physical games were Nintendo Switch titles, which itself was the best-selling hardware for 2022.
That means Nintendo has now dominated the physical software charts every year in Japan since 2004, which was the last year the company didn’t have the majority of the top ten selling games.
That year PS2 reigned ahead of the ageing Game Boy Advance and Nintendo GameCube (eight out of the top ten games in 2004 were on Sony’s platform).
Since then, the majority of Japan’s top ten best-selling games every year have been on Nintendo platforms, according to historical Famitsu data.
Since 2004, Japan’s annual best-selling game has been on a non-Nintendo platform only twice (Dragon Quest VIII in 2004 and Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G in 2008).
13 of Japan’s last 19 annual best-sellers were published by Nintendo.
On the hardware front, only one year in the last 18 has seen a non-Nintendo console on top in Japan: PSP in 2010. In every other year, either DS, 3DS or Nintendo Switch were the best-selling hardware.
Of the 10 best-selling physical games in Japan in 2022, nine of them were on Switch. The exception was the PS4 version of Elden Ring, which was number 10.
In terms of hardware, the Switch was far and away the nation’s best-selling console again in 2022, as PS5 stock shortages continued for much of the year.
Indeed, the Switch sold more than three times every other console combined, with total sales of over 4.8 million, bringing its lifetime total in Japan to over 27.7 million.
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