This is an emerging theme of ignoring one of the consoles depending on the argument you are truing to present. I've seen Nintendo consoles dismissed in other discussions because of this same reason, i.e. it's not 'high performance'. Today in a discussion about home consoles in Japan where it's stated the Wii did not sell well, the Xbox has been dismissed because it sells even worse.
If in a discussion about consoles, you have to remove one of three console manufacturers to make a point, that point is on shaky ground.
Yup. In this case it's better to frame it in the context of both historical sales of X companies consoles or general trends in the market. For Japan in particular non-portable consoles have been on a declining sales trend for a while now.
We can first start with a console that has seen relatively stable performance except the blip that was the PS3.
- PS1 - 21.59 million units
- PS2 - 23.18 million units
- PS3 - 10.47 million units
- PS4 - 9.59 million units
Here we can see the PS3 take a much more drastic dip than say going from the PS3 to the PS4. IMO, had Sony executed well on the PS3, then I'd estimate sales for it in Japan likely would have been in the 14-18 million unit range. But regardless a declining trend since the PS2. Another thing to note is that the PS2 didn't see as much of a jump from the PS1 in Japan as it did in the rest of the world.
- PS1 to PS2 in Japan: ~7.4% increase
- PS1 to PS2 WW: ~54.8% increase
And it's the only region where PS4 didn't increase sales compared to PS3, despite PS3's rather anomalous decline compared to past PlayStation consoles.
However if we look at Nintendo home consoles.
- NES - 19.35 million units
- SNES - 17.17 million units - the last Nintendo Home Console to get a Final Fantasy release.
- N64 - 5.54 million units
- GC - 4.04 million units
- Wii - 12.77 million units
- Wii U - 3.33 million units
Ouch that drop at N64! For Nintendo, the Wii was a success in Japan despite a general trend downwards for home consoles in that country. And more importantly it was a huge success for Nintendo when looking at the trend of past Nintendo home console sales.
And if people were to dig further into the numbers, and the environment within which they were happening, it wasn't that Japan was growing tired of console gaming, but that it was suffering from a worsening economy combined with one of the highest costs of living in the world. Getting a portable console is generally cheaper than getting a home console. That immediately tilts things in favor of portable consoles in Japan. It also doesn't hurt that it's not as at much of a disadvantage versus mobile gaming on phones as it can still be brought with you on the long commutes to work and/or school.
Of course, here comes Nintendo to confuse things as the NSW is both a Home Console as well as a Portable Console. So, going forward would it even make sense to continue to think of them as separate markets? Yes and no. They are still 2 quite distinct markets, but you can't attribute sales of NSW to either portable or home console ... it's just a console that straddles both markets and in a way homogenizes them in a way that no other console can. Thus the NSW, unlike their competition from Sony and Microsoft can flourish in both portable console markets (Japan, for example) and non-portable console markets.
Regards,
SB
I mean it wasn't like the IP got it's start on Nintendo consoles and was a staple of Nintendo consoles until the N64.
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