[JFTC] 2021 market share (revenue) of digital distributed games on consoles in Japan (minus Nintendo 1stP), ~50% Nintendo, ~50% Playstation, 0-5% Xbox

[enpleinjour]

https://www.jftc.go.jp/houdou/pressrelease/2023/mar/kiketsu/230328_ma.pdf

Perhaps the most interesting tables

Translation from what I know is digital distribution marketshare for games on consoles in 2021. Numbers have been rounded to the nearest 5% incremental.

Importantly gives us data on the digital ratio for Nintendo and Playstation.

I believe its revenue since the hardware marketshare, Table 7, has Nintendo 70%, Playstation 30% which only works out by revenue. By units Nintendo had 81% of the market in 2021.

Also impossible to get 50/50 PS:N if Nintendo 1st party is included. That is if this is about game sales and so does not include F2P/MTX etc

Estimating digital ratios:

• Nintendo 3rd party physical sales 2021 CY = ~11M
• Playstation physical sales 2021 CY = ~4.5M
• Assuming similar price distribution
• So you can work it out:
  • PS 20% digital = 1.125M digital games
  • PS ~= Nintendo -> 1.125/(11+1.125) = 10% digital ratio for Nintendo 3rd party

PS digital	Nintendo digital (3rd party)
20%	9%
30%	15%
40%	21%
50%	29%

There's more tables there, PC distirbution, game publishing, Cloud, but its harder for me to parse since there are so many companies unlabelled.

 

[ILikeFeet]

so even nintendo hit high digitial ratios. with nintendo games making up such a large chunk of game sales, I'm curious where that lies

 

[unkindlynice]

This is good to see. People need to accept digital has been growing strongly in Japan. Shame no PC info.

 

[MegaXZero]

Chris had a very nice breakdown of what third party Switch digital should be for 2021 in japan based on MC sell through and Nintendo shipments. Judging by what should be like 15 million digital 3rd party switch game sales (not including digital only cause Nintendo doesn't report that) I really doubt this is solely based on just games and doesn't include MTX, especially given how 2022's PSN chart looked with the #2 game.

 

[EnergyDrink]

I think without Nintendo first party sales such data is almost meaningless in Japan. Does it include all third party at least or are these just estimates like the hilarious Famitsu digital numbers?

 

[askatmat]

From Deepl: "Market Share of Purchase-type Distribution Business for Game Consoles in 2021"
this is overall marketshare for everything: Premium Game (Digital, Physical), MTX, and subscription. (it was explained in page 6 and 7). Nintendo 1st party should also be included and should be based on revenue. this is a surprise, Playstation revenue is almost the same level as nintendo in 2021 in japan. i will also update the CEDEC 2022 presentation for playstation later.

 

[MegaXZero]

From Deepl: "Market Share of Purchase-type Distribution Business for Game Consoles in 2021"
this is overall marketshare for everything: Premium Game (Digital, Physical), MTX, and subscription. (it was explained in page 6 and 7). Nintendo 1st party should also be included and should be based on revenue. this is a surprise, Playstation revenue is almost the same level as nintendo in 2021 in japan. i will also update the CEDEC 2022 presentation for playstation later.

Do we know how they are getting their information? As usually the only time Nintendo shares these digital revenue metrics they report it differently than Playstation (royalty vs full cut).

 

[askatmat]

Do we know how they are getting their information? As usually the only time Nintendo shares these revenue metrics they report it differently than Playstation (royalty vs full cut).

since this is from JFTC, they should be able to request this data from nintendo. if not, nintendo should be excluded. JFTC have to ask hundreds of company (3rd party) worldwide to share their data, also some notes that subscription is excluded for company CC.

 

[enpleinjour]

From Deepl: "Market Share of Purchase-type Distribution Business for Game Consoles in 2021"
this is overall marketshare for everything: Premium Game (Digital, Physical), MTX, and subscription. (it was explained in page 6 and 7). Nintendo 1st party should also be included and should be based on revenue. this is a surprise, Playstation revenue is almost the same level as nintendo in 2021 in japan. i will also update the CEDEC 2022 presentation for playstation later.

The translation I got from someone was "digital distributed games for consoles", which implies game units. Is it "games for consoles" or "for game consoles"?

It would make more sense if it was everything considering how Playstation is 50% marketshare. Can we get someone else to translate it?

This graph may also give us an idea if Nintendo's digital is included:

Nintendo has 35% but by physical sales in 2021 their marketshare was 43%.

 

[fiendcode]

What would be the 4th console behind Xbox with 0-5% digital?