Sales hit historic 26-year low
According toFamitsu’s annual report(viaVG24/7), the Japanese games industry was worth ¥321 billion – that’s a 13 percent drop from the previous year.
Although these figures do not take into account digital sales (which, let’s face it, surely must be increasing year-on-year — particularly with the rise of the mobile game market), console sales fell 8.5 percent and software sales dropped 16 percent, making this the least profitable year in 26 years.
In regards to traditional sales, last year’s leader wasMonster Hunter X, which has sold 2.4 million copies since its launch in November, 2015 — an interesting tidbit, given Nintendo otherwise dominates the sales chart.
Japanese top 10 bestselling software 2015
Hardware sales Japan 2015
Brace yourself for a devil’s advocate question: given the drop in sales across the board… could this mean that Konami’s recent, er, business decisions were understandable/right/correct? (lol). Well, it may go some way to explainingwhy so many Japanese devs are going under, right?
