Japanese Nintendo Switch lifetime sales have now surpassed the Nintendo Wii's

Switch-WSJ_10-04-18.jpg

The Nintendo Switch is quite the popular console right now, as many in lockdown are finding out. Hardware shortages have been noticed across the world--especially in Nintendo's home country--with demand overwhelming the short supply of the system. Not to mention, with the success of the recently released Animal Crossing: New Horizons, even the slightly less popular Nintendo Switch Lite handhelds are flying off the shelves. This has lead to a sharp jump in sales for the Switch hardware line, which are up more than 300,000 units over last week, in Japan. This surge in sales also means that the Nintendo Switch has officially surpassed the Nintendo Wii in terms of units sold in Japan. Though the Nintendo Wii was incredibly popular and still boasts over 101 million global sales, it only sold 12.7 million units in Japan before the system was discontinued in 2013. Currently, the Nintendo Switch is sitting at 12.8 million systems sold, putting it just above the older console's figures.

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Silent_Gunner

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Wow, Japan must really dislike nintendo if it couldn't even make up a fraction of the 100 million sales for the wii. :blink:

Or it could be that the Wii's sales was more because of there not being a whole storefront of Angry Birds, Temple Runs, Candy Crushes, Match 3's, Hidden Object Adventures, etc. on small portable devices that everyone could use easily being available in 2006/2007 in the US. Japan, on the other hand... *looks at all of the dating games and the like on phones and, of course, stuff like Love Plus on the DS*
 
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Sonic Angel Knight

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Or it could be that the Wii's sales was more because of there not being a whole storefront of Angry Birds, Temple Runs, Candy Crushes, Match 3's, Hidden Object Adventures, etc. on small portable devices that everyone could use easily being available in 2006/2007 in the US. Japan, on the other hand... *looks at all of the dating games and the like on phones and, of course, stuff like Love Plus on the DS*
I don't know, I honestly don't play those games. (The phone games, I tried a date sim like maybe 3 times just to "hype check") Just saying that it seems unexpected for sales to be less prevalent in the homeland of the product. Honestly I known for years that games have been targeting sales in USA or North America for being the bigger market. Still I just figured the most sales would be from the country the product comes from. :blink:
 

Silent_Gunner

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I don't know, I honestly don't play those games. (The phone games, I tried a date sim like maybe 3 times just to "hype check") Just saying that it seems unexpected for sales to be less prevalent in the homeland of the product. Honestly I known for years that games have been targeting sales in USA or North America for being the bigger market. Still I just figured the most sales would be from the country the product comes from. :blink:

Yet Japan doesn't buy the Xbox consoles because it "wasn't made here." Yet, at the same time, some in Japan are embracing change...

 

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Or it could be that the Wii's sales was more because of there not being a whole storefront of Angry Birds, Temple Runs, Candy Crushes, Match 3's, Hidden Object Adventures, etc.

While the Wii had its fair share of shovelware, as you stated,
it was nowhere near as bad as the Switch has it.

Sometimes I need recheck if it is actually the eShop I'm browsing,
and not some dang lame appstore.


TBH, though. I'm surprised consoles/hybrid handehelds like the switch still see revenue.
I was under the impression that "smartphone gaming" did the trick for most.
 
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Silent_Gunner

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While the Wii had its fair share of shovelware, as you stated,
it was nowhere near as bad as the Switch has it.

Sometimes I need recheck if it is actually the eShop I'm browsing,
and not some dang lame appstore.

I'd say that the Switch is better in that I don't have to set up a friggin' bar on the top or bottom of a TV and stand or somehow sit perfectly still and far enough from the TV for the motion controls to work correctly with no problems for the games that required them (which was almost all of the games that weren't ports), and that the games it does have not forcing yours truly to use said motion controls or be left with a brick. I still think that if Nintendo and certain games exclusive to that system (*coughs in both of the OG No More Heroes games and all of the Trauma Center games*) were "re-mastered" with some upscaling applied to some of the graphics that the Switch would make a better way to play some of these games with the better motion controls that the Joy-Cons have as opposed to the Wiimote and the Nunchuk.

I mean, let me put it this way: when I can get better motion control aiming in Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicleswith my Steam Controller than a Wiimote with just that wireless dongle, you know that you fucked up. The only problem being that game being one of those ones where you have to know what button does what because devs just had to have QTE's in every late 2000's game because RE4 and GOW did it.
 
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Next milestone should be the Japanese lifetime sale for the PSP which stands at 20 million and then the Japanese PS2 console sale at over 21 million.
 

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I'd say that the Switch is better in that I don't have to set up a friggin' bar on the top or bottom of a TV and stand or somehow sit perfectly still and far enough from the TV for the motion controls to work correctly with no problems for the games that required them (which was almost all of the games that weren't ports), and that the games it does have not forcing yours truly to use said motion controls or be left with a brick. I still think that if Nintendo and certain games exclusive to that system (*coughs in both of the OG No More Heroes games and all of the Trauma Center games*) were "re-mastered" with some upscaling applied to some of the graphics that the Switch would make a better way to play some of these games with the better motion controls that the Joy-Cons have as opposed to the Wiimote and the Nunchuk.

I mean, let me put it this way: when I can get better motion control aiming in Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicleswith my Steam Controller than a Wiimote with just that wireless dongle, you know that you fucked up. The only problem being that game being one of those ones where you have to know what button does what because devs just had to have QTE's in every late 2000's game because RE4 and GOW did it.
You're comparing technology that's 10-15 years apart, but the Wiimote with the later released Motion Plus actually works really well. The gyroscopes you have in pretty much all electronics nowadays weren't really a thing when the Wii came out. Wii games would work on the Switch, but because all they'd be able to rely on is the gyroscope in the joycons, they wouldn't work as well as the Wiimote (+ Motion Plus) + sensorbar. The sensorbar allows the console to know where the remote is, but the Switch can only know the rotation of the gyroscope and make somewhat informed guesses as to what you want to do. Of course I'm talking about games where you need some precision, waggling will never be a problem.

You can play No More Heroes 2 with a Classic Controller, btw.
 
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I'm curious to see if they can keep the sales up after the next gen consoles release. Right now switch is getting 3rd party games from mostly last gen and a few current gen when possible. Switch won't be able to run the new games coming out and there's no upgraded version on the horizon. Third parties might lose interest because of limitations causing ambitious titles not to release on the platform. Aka the wii all over again. The console went on decline real fast so they rushed a new lackluster console onto the market after and we all know what happened next.
 

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Or it could be that the Wii's sales was more because of there not being a whole storefront of Angry Birds, Temple Runs, Candy Crushes, Match 3's, Hidden Object Adventures, etc. on small portable devices that everyone could use easily being available in 2006/2007 in the US. Japan, on the other hand... *looks at all of the dating games and the like on phones and, of course, stuff like Love Plus on the DS*

Activision published 2 Angry Birds games for the Wii - Angry Birds Trilogy and Angry Birds Star Wars. They were also released for the 3DS.
 

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Too bad that people in Poland don't care about switch, it's a Great system.
They do care about the Switch but Nintendo didn't even have an official supplier in Poland until recently... And it's shared with Czech Republic.

Also Polish localizations are almost non-existent on the Switch, even for ported games that already had them. The marketing is weak too, doesn't go beyond press ads.

So it's not the fault of Polish gamers that Nintendo doesn't make any effort and put up any fight against Sony's domination.
 
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