According to the estimate of the comprehensive game media Famitong, the output value of Japan's domestic console game market will reach 361.39 billion yen in 2021, a slight decrease of 1.6% year-on-year. After a long period of growth in 2020, 2021 has once again stalled.
Among them, hardware and software behave in the opposite way. The hardware market share was 202,870 million yen, an increase of 9.3% over the previous year; software (excluding digital version) was 158.520 million yen, down 12.8% year-on-year.
The shrinkage of the Japanese console game software market in 2021 should be said to be "reasonable". Mainly because under the epidemic situation in 2020, the sales volume of Dongsen is too high, and the driving force for the market is too strong.
The data shows that the first software sales volume in 2020 is "Collection! Animal Friends sold a total of 6.378 million copies and also boosted sales of Nintendo Switch consoles. At the top of the 2021 software sales list is Monster Hunter: Rise (CAPCOM /Released on March 26, 2021/Switch), which has launched a new series of new works in three years, with sales of "only" 2.351 million units.
In second place is Pokémon Crystal Diamond Brilliant Pearl (Pokémon Corporation/November 19, 2021/Switch), which sold 2.313 million copies of the software. Although it was only released in mid-November, it is a Pokémon IP after all, with a wave of weekly sales "six consecutive championships", coupled with just catching up with the peak of consumption at the end of the year, this product is only a little bit away from the top of the list.
In third place is Momotaro Electric Railway, Akira Andei Noriki (KONAMI / Released November 19, 2020 / Switch). In 2021, the game sold 1.266 million units a year, surpassing the 1.233 million units sold in 2020.
Starting from the 4th place, it has sold less than 1 million units a year, and it is all covered by games on the Nintendo Switch platform.
(Cumulative sales data is: from the date of sale, until December 26, 2021)
In the Japanese console game hardware market, the combined sales of the three Nintendo Switch models reached 5.579 million units, ranking first in the annual hardware sales list for five consecutive years. As of the end of May 2021, the cumulative sales of the Switch in Japan exceeded 20 million units, single-handedly supporting the domestic home console game market.
On the other hand, due to the serious shortage of global semiconductor supply, The Play Station 5 and Xbox Series X|S in Japan are always out of stock throughout the year. As a result, sales of the two next-generation consoles were not ideal, with the PlayStation 5 selling 968,000 units in 2018,000 units and the Xbox Series X|S selling only 97,000 units. These two numbers are difficult to reflect the real needs of the user side.
At the beginning of 2021, Famitong pointed out when releasing the 2020 Japanese console game market report that players' expectations for Switch's Monster Hunter: Rise are extremely high, and the latter is also very "competitive" to win the first place of the year by a slight margin. But overall, in 2021, the console game software did not appear to be a super hit like Dongsen. The market has basically got off the home economy.
Looking ahead to 2022, Pokémon Legends: Al Zeus will land on the Switch platform for worldwide release on January 28. Considering the strength of Pokémon IP and the rare ARPG type on Pokémon, this product is expected to become the opening of the Japanese console game software market in 2022.
In addition, the Japanese console game market is experiencing a stage of self-innovation, the original single buyout system began to be combined with A variety of business models such as F2P and subscription system, and the future development after the model is formed is still worth looking forward to.