Japanese Charts: Shin Megami Tensei V Drops As Elden Ring DLC Bundle Takes The Throne

I don’t know how they do it but they’ve nailed Switch projections years ago! Next switch next year looks perfect timing!

Another dominant week for the Switch all round, I wonder if Luigis Mansion 2 can knock Elden Ring off top next week.

Also quite amusing to see the PS4 outsell the Series S.

@UltimateOtaku91 Quite good though; this means people will not stand for an digital only console; which means very good news for physical media. You should see the people on PushSquare that seem convinced all consoles will be digital only years from now haha

i think there was a article sony will go all digital by 2036 or when the ps7 comes out still a ways to go

@Maubari They're clearly not standing by the Xbox console with the disc drive, either. Xbox isn't popular in Japan.

@UltimateOtaku91 a million copies of elden ring were sold in japan it makes sense the dlc would be at the top of the charts even in japan..

I for one will never buy a new atlas game after I realized how crooked their business practices are.
It’s basically selling the DLC as a full price game.

My favorite story of the week is a Japanize manga artist putting his series on hold because he needs to play the Elden Ring DLC

https://soranews24.com/2024/06/20/manga-artist-nikiichi-tobita-announces-hiatus-for-totally-understandable-very-happy-reason/

@Maubari Yes it is good as I'm strongly against an all digital future, same with PS5 digital version being outsold 8-1 by the disk version.

Heck yeah Elden Ring! DLC’s been a butt-kicking good time.

@Maubari

You might be projecting a bit.

Nintendo released a digital only console in Japan in 1995 and people bought the crap out of it.

Nintendo, Sega and NEC all had digital only, subscription game services in Japan in the 90s and 2000s, which did very well and are fondly remembered.

People in Japan were perfectly fine with digital only games before people in the West knew that was even a possibility.

Japan's retail culture is very heathy. Most stores do promotions, giveaways, and make a big deal out of releases, so customers eat it up. I never buy physical game in Japan but I often go to retail stores on release because they are just a ton of fun! Nintendo and Sony are going to support physical media as long as they are still getting ordered from retail stores, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

But unlike US/Internet culture where if you like something you are OBLAGTED BY LAW to hate the opposite thing and dehumanize anyone who likes, it's actually pretty common in Japan (and like ... most of the world) for most people to see upsides to both digital and physical media, and make decisions based on circumstance.

The Xbox has never sold well in Japan. Not only are the numbers awful, something like 60% of sales are to residents from other countries. HD or no HD, this has always been the case.

Wow really surprising to see an obscure shmup like Radiant Silvergun up there in the top 10. It still amaze me how Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance still selling so well on Switch even though the game is now available on other platforms. Either Japan doesn't embrace 4K or doesn't care about better graphics that much. There's no reason for the Switch version to still sell this well especially when people already got the vanilla version many years prior.

@HeadPirate .... Do you really expect me to read that wall of text? I think not.

@Ralizah Yeah, that's quite unfortunate. Microsoft deserves the sales far more than Sony.

PlayStation version of of SMT is not even on top 10 anymore. Sheesh at least in Japan Vengeance did less then expected when Switch is well under 50k still and PS forgot to show up despite the game not being a rerelease for them.

@Serpenterror Radiant Silvergun on the Switch is pretty decent, I hadn’t played it since the Saturn days and I got it handed to me big time. I used to do quite well on it!

“Shadown of the Erdtree”?

@HeadPirate That's not even a digital only console, that's just a back-up service they had where Japanese customers could buy and take their physical Famicom Disk System floppy to purchase and download back-up version of a game they want to play. Their Color TV games consoles aren't even digital only consoles as those are just plug and play and mostly only play one game, Pong with several variations. Their Satellaview is just an add-on for a broadcast subscription service that offer extras for those who participate. Nintendo nor Sega had never release a digital only console (unless you count plug and play which aren't even the same thing as the competing consoles. The first company that made the first true digital only console was the Ouya. The only other digital only device Nintendo embrace were those Chinese iQue products they released in China for the N64 and GameCube, for the Chinese gamers to download and the Nvidia Shield handheld that launch in China that could play HD Wii games.

@Maubari I don't get why people want the big three to go all digital and I don't think all of them going all digital help the big three either. If anything it'll limit their earnings even more, if all consoles are all digital, that means customers could no longer buy multiple copies of the same game anymore which means the big publishers will lose a lot cause people could just re-download the same game for free after they purchase it. Even worst customers who had families aren't going to go out and buy the same game their brother or sister is playing, they'll just share account instead and play each other's games for free which will be a big blow to the big three. Going all digital will come back to bite them just like it did the Ouya, the Steam Machines, and the PSP Go.

@Serpenterror

I mean, semantics. The important part is that Japanize customers, in 1995, paid for video game content on non-physical media that had limited time ownership and were perfectly fine with that. They paid $400ish in todays money for a system with no physical games. Hell, like you said, it wasn't even like they lost the ability to play games when the system went down. If the event was at 9pm on Thursday and you were busy, you never got to play it in the first place.

So any argument that Japan costumers are against systems that do not allow physical ownership is DOA. Even long term ownership of digital media isn't really an issue with the average customer.

Not to mention the digital only PS5 is selling just fine. I'm not in Japan right now, but none of my friends or co-workers have mentioned any rioting or anti-Sony protests due to it's release.

So the original argument I was responding to, that Xbox isn't selling well because of backlash to Microsoft's digital only systems, is obviously misguided. I'm sure you can agree.

I’m glad to see SMTV Vengeance doing well! This new edition is quite incredible, and improves on the original in every way. And it also helps that it’s on more platforms now.

Actually that is a good parallel. If Shadow of the Erdrtee had been released by Atlus probably they would have done this royal/vengeance monstruosity forcing original owners to buy the full game again just for some add-ons and enhancement to the story.
But on the other hand FromSoftware chads released this huge expansion that could have even been considered a full game on it's own as a DLC and is doing great..
Look I loved both SMTV and Elden Ring and know are completely different games, but definitively only bought SOTE and not Vengeance and am loving every second of it. I honestly hope for SOTE to do amazingly and Vengeance to be a flop for the way they released it.

@UltimateOtaku91 Obviously LM2HD will #1 next week. Elden Ring bundle is going to drop in it's second week like almost every game by like 50-80% and LM2HD is almost certainly going to sell more in it's first week than Elden Ring did this week anyways. 24k is a very low bar to top.

Nice to see PS4 hanging in there!

PS5 sales is still good. 😊
And a little boost for PS4 too. 🙂

@HeadPirate You're making a pretty broad assumption there in saying that Japanese customers were perfectly fine with not owning or playing those games. You have absolutely zero data to back that claim up other than your own opinion of the time in history. That is a world in which they had no option - we have options today for physical or digital and many people have preferences for either which is totally fine. A digitally only future (IMO) is a harmful one for everyone as consumers of this medium. You have limited options for purchasing and we will be at the mercy of whatever those digital storefronts decide to charge. They will not have any competition for sales - and that is always a bad thing. I'm not sure why this is a hill you are dying on, but it's a bad take.

@hippoeater

I get that it's always hard to accept new view points, but rather then just tell me I'm wrong, why not just look up the sales numbers on the system and how well SEGA and NEC's subscription based game services did? There are a lot of vloggers who cover the history of online services in Japan extensively and better then I ever could.

I also don't understand how speaking to the facts about Japan's very different take on online subscription services and temporary ownership equates to supporting a "digital only" future. Like I said, most people in Japan (and the world, really) don't have this US vs. THEM mentality. People buy physical games when the store is having a good promo and digital games when they feel like staying home. No one is picking a side in some type of Mad-Max death battle by picking one media over another. No one is ever thinking that by wanting more digital options they are saying their should be less physical opinions, or vise versa. They both exist in a very healthy state.

Choice IS a great thing. But the choice to buy a digital only system because it's cheaper and your lifestyle means you only buy digital games is just as important to respect. For people who want that, you should be advocating more digital only systems and more online content.

You're not really advocating for "choice" if the only choice you respect is for people to agree with you.

Its always weird to me that people will say how PlayStation is dying or oh their console is doing 'badly'.

I mean you see the numbers. Just because its being outsold by the Switch doesn't mean its selling badly. By that metric the N64 was a failure because the PS1 outsold it and no one says that.

I just appreciate being notified that a Spirit Hunter collection is available. I’ve had all three in my Japanese eShop wishlist for forever, waiting for a sale, and now… I get all 3 of them for about a third of their total eShop price? 🤑

@ShonenJump121 Proper context is important. Switch is one foot in the grave in terms of how old it is while PS5 is a spring chicken for how much newer it is, but both hardware and especially software is not catching on in Japan. You know how people make fun of how Sony kills MS in Japan?

Well Sony might as well be MS when compared to Nintendo and it didn’t always used to be that way.

@Arawn93 A lot of people aren't buying PS5s because they don't need to. Most people are fine with their PS4, its some crazy statistic like 75% of people still use their PS4.

Their hasn't been a large reason to upgrade given most titles on are both platforms. Casual stuff like the latest Call Of Duty and Madden are still releasing on PS4

@Arawn93 I made a prediction before the PS5 came out - if it doesn't properly cater to the Japanese market then it will never be able to compete with the Switch, as Japanese players aren't wowed by big western "AAA" games at all. They all disappear after about a week or so in the charts.

The PS5 is pretty much an American console bar the branding, with very little in the way of titles for Japanese players. The Final Fantasy games were modified to cater for western audiences, and they bombed in Japan.

@Serpenterror I highly agree with you, naturally! And ohh boy, the Ouya.. I completely forgot about that one. Should say enough haha