Media Create did a sales comparison between Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 (debut year i.e. how many units sold in first year of launch) and the result was Nintendo Switch sold 3,802,910 units whereas PS4 sold 1,143,542 units.
With the weekly data from Media Create now available, we can finally tell precisely how many units Nintendo Switch sold in Japan throughout its first year of availability (March 4, 2017, to the same 2018 day). Indeed, during its debut year, Nintendo Switch sold 3,802,910 units, which is basically the triple of PlayStation 4 across its first year in Japan. Sony’s console was, in fact, able to ship “only” 1,143,542 units back in 2013.
It must be noted that PS4 had a notoriously bad first year in Japan, which was due to a couple reasons. First of all, Japanese games lineup was quite poor at the times; also, it paid the fact that PSP and PS Vita were still very strong at the time, and we know the passion of Japanese players for handheld consoles.
Things have started to ramp up for PS4 as well, anyway, and according to Media Create the console has managed to ship 6,511,985 units, going through the 6,5 million units in Japan. Which is something we wouldn’t call a failure?
Interestingly, though, Nintendo Switch still has to peak, considering that Nintendo had several issues in providing supplies to Japanese stores during the first year.
Now that it’s gearing up, there’s a serious possibility that sales get higher and higher during this year, especially when the new Pokemon releases, while PS4 might have just gone through its best moment since launch last year.
A new Nintendo Direct is scheduled to air later today at 2 PM PST. I am expecting a lot of thing from Nintendo from today’s Nintendo Direct – it is going to set things up for Nintendo Switch owners for 2018 and 2019.
