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Some stats for the japanese videogame market in 2020 from Famitsu Game White Paper 2021

Celine

Archivist
Archivist Genius
Period covered: from December 30, 2019 to December 27, 2020

Annual Video Game market total revenue in 2020:
Total: 580.7Bn yen (+32.94% YoY)
Hardware: 185.6Bn yen (+16.35 YoY)
Software: 181.7Bn yen (+8.87% YoY)
Online: 213.4Bn yen (+93.30% YoY)

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Software market share per publisher in Japan in 2020 (unit sales):
1) Nintendo: 47.5%
2) Konami: 6.5%
3) Square Enix: 6.5%
4) Bandai Namco: 5.8%
5) Pokemon Co: 4.8%
6) SIE: 4.5%
7) Sega: 3.0%
8) Koei Tecmo: 2.9%
9) Capcom: 2.3%
10) Microsoft: 2.1%

Top 10 best selling games of 2020, including digital sales estimates (in order: physical sales | digital sales | total sales):
01. [NSW] Animal Crossing: New Horizons # <ETC> (Nintendo) {2020.03.20} (¥5.980) – 6.378.103 | 2.642.157 | 9.020.260
02. [NSW] Momotaro Dentetsu: Showa, Heisei, Reiwa mo Teiban! <TBL> (Konami) {2020.11.19} (¥6.300) – 1.233.023 | 387.795 | 1.620.818

03. [NSW] Ring Fit Adventure # <HOB> (Nintendo) {2019.10.18} (¥7.980) – 1.591.366 | -- | 1.591.366
04. [PS4] Final Fantasy VII Remake # <RPG> (Square Enix) {2020.04.10} (¥8.980) – 949.379 | 372.931 | 1.322.310
05. [NSW] Pokemon Sword / Shield # <RPG> (Pokemon Co.) {2019.11.15} (¥5.980) – 892.456 | 312.963 | 1.205.419
06. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe <RCE> (Nintendo) {2017.04.28} (¥5.980) – 798.174 | 347.925 | 1.146.099
07. [NSW] Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics <TBL> (Nintendo) {2020.06.05} (¥3.980) – 519.649 | 392.766 | 912.415
08. [NSW] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate # <FTG> (Nintendo) {2018.12.07} (¥7.200) – 560.122 | 285.187 | 845.309
09. [NSW] Minecraft # <ADV> (Microsoft Game Studios) {2018.06.21} (¥3.600) – 556.982 | 253.310 | 810.292
10. [NSW] Super Mario 3D All-Stars <Super Mario 64 \ Super Mario Sunshine \ Super Mario Galaxy> <ACT> (Nintendo) {2020.09.18} (¥6.480) – 492.620 | 274.255 | 766.875

Keep in mind that in the past Famitsu's digital sales estimates were found to be lacking in accuracy so take them with a grain of salt.
At least it should put to rest the idea some have that full price new game releases have extremely high digital ratio in Japan.
 
The software market share per publisher is quite telling. Do we have that data for previous years as well?

Also, good to see you here, Celine! And thanks for sharing!
 
The software market share per publisher is quite telling. Do we have that data for previous years as well?
Software market share per publisher in Japan in 2019 (unit sales; Famitsu Game White Paper 2020):
1) Nintendo: 27.9%
2) Pokemon Co: 13.5%
3) Bandai Namco: 9.5%
4) Square Enix: 8.8%
5) Capcom: 6.1%
6) SIE: 4.1%
7) Sega: 3.3%
8) Konami: 3.1%
9) Microsoft: 2.4%
10) Koei Tecmo: 2.4%
 
Those digital estimates seem much more reasonable than their infamous ones from before. Looks like they at least took into account Nintendo's shipment data.

Glad to see you here, Celine. Thank you for your amazing archives and continued work.
 
I honestly believe we should be totally discarding Famitsu’s digital numbers. Especially since Nintendo’s often prove them wrong and they don’t bother fixing them
 
I honestly believe we should be totally discarding Famitsu’s digital numbers. Especially since Nintendo’s often prove them wrong and they don’t bother fixing them
I still would use this as big picture of the overall industry health and how it is showing growth again.
 
Based on context and source, no it does not.
I’m surprised. Based on how much developers are investing in mobile and the West, you would think that the Japanese market has contracted heavily and irreversibly, yet it has been very strong since 2017 and even had a top 5 year in 2020 (COVID, but still).

I’m not expecting 2020 numbers to be sustainable, but this does show that there’s still a lot of potential in the Japanese market with the right software/hardware.
 
Nintendo + Pokemon Company's marketshare keeps snowballing year after year. I think 1997 was the last year that Nintendo was not the top publisher.
 
It's going to be interesting to see how that Top Ten publisher list shifts over the next few years. Bandai Namco has already started tumbling despite being 2nd/3rd place pretty much every year.
 
Nintendo + Pokemon Company's marketshare keeps snowballing year after year. I think 1997 was the last year that Nintendo was not the top publisher.
Yeah, Nintendo's first-party software was almost always the most dominant in the japanese console market through history though the degree varied year by year.
Today difference between the US market and the japanese market is that while Nintendo has a big influence in both, Japan lacks the array of (local) third-party software that counter balance Nintendo's power (western publishers' software seems incapable to fill the void for Japan) that instead are present in US.
 
Seeing Konami on the rise is nice when people are saying they aren't especially Western journalists lol.
 
Does famitsu also estimate digital revenue in that overall market revenue chart too or are they from ''real'' source? Considering how inaccurate their digital estimates for game sales have been it would make that overall chart too somewhat questionable.
 
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