From our other sites
The story
Nintendo’s new-releases showcase “Nintendo Direct” pulled in roughly 1 million concurrent viewers, while Sony’s “State of Play” topped out at just 50,000–100,000 — sparking a debate over game market share on 5ch’s hardware/industry board. Posters pushed back on the idea that concurrent viewer counts alone can settle the market-share question, citing other data instead: first-week sales comparisons for Elden Ring, a Tokyo Game Show attendee survey, and an age-bracket survey from marketing firm Cross Marketing. Opinions split over whether Nintendo really is the overwhelming majority, or whether the results just shift depending on how you measure them.
What people said
State of Play: 50,000–100,000
Guess the concurrent viewer count really was the answer.
If you assume digital sales roughly cancel out, you're just left with the Famitsu rankings. Why is that so hard to get?
PS also has free-to-play titles on top of its digital sales.
Were you holed up in cryosleep or something?
Then quit saying you don't need Western games — you're gonna flop GTA6 too.
Twitter got renamed a long time ago, you know.
Sorry, I don't watch anime so I don't get the reference — what's that supposed to mean?
Were you seriously cut off from the internet? It's 2026, come on.
Elden Ring first-week sales:
188,490 — PS4 (9.39M units sold, upgradable to PS5 version)
*90,017 — PS5 (1.4M units sold)
*24,012 — PS5 Erdtree (DLC-bundled edition)
*27,604 — Switch 2 "Tarnished Edition" (6.24M units sold)
Why are you comparing a same-day release to a later one? If we're counting later releases, doesn't that make Switch 2 the winner?
TGS 2025 attendee survey — devices owned at home that get used for gaming:
PC (+ Steam Deck): 61.5%
Switch 1: 49.4%
PS5: 33.1%
Switch 2: 23.1%
Xbox X|S: 2.2%
That's such a small market that Super Real Mahjong can top the charts for days straight. Plus, the crowd that actually shows up to TGS is packed with hardcore otaku types, so the sample's skewed.
Well of course the people who go to TGS are PC gamers, lol.
Here's another one for you.
A survey published in 2025 by marketing firm Cross Marketing:
Among Gen Z, current consumer gaming devices in use (multiple answers allowed):
Switch: 62.1%
PS5: 15.1%
PS4: 10.7%
PC: 11.3%
Across all age groups:
Switch: 55.0%
PS5: 23.6%
PS4: 22.2%
PC: 19.5%
https://www.cross-m.co.jp/hubfs/Report/report_files/20250722game.pdf
There's probably a fair number of people who genuinely do wait, but PC's GTA Online population still gets crushed by PS5's.
It's not really a platform you play with a controller anyway.
Uh, hold on… why are you ignoring the official overseas numbers?
Probably because this State of Play aired in a time slot aimed at Japan, so the overseas concurrent viewer count took a big hit.
If you bring the official overseas numbers into it, the gap with Nintendo Direct just gets even bigger.
You look at Re: #39 and your takeaway is "splitting wins and losses"?
Well, for hardcore Nintendo-brand fans it's Nintendo first, Pokémon second, nothing in third or fourth place, and third parties a distant fifth — and even those third-party hits tend to be stuff like Power Pros or Momotaro Dentetsu.
Background and Key Points of This Debate
“Concurrent viewer count” simply measures how many people tuned in to a broadcast — it doesn’t directly translate into unit sales or the number of hardware owners. Domestic game sales are usually gauged by Famitsu’s weekly rankings, but digital-download tallying methods vary by outlet, and since both Nintendo and Sony sell digital versions, straightforward comparisons are tricky. The Tokyo Game Show attendee survey is also prone to skew, since the people who actually show up tend to be core gamers, which may not reflect the real market makeup. And as the Cross Marketing survey cited in the thread shows, results can shift dramatically depending on which age group you look at — a detail that’s easy to overlook. What this thread’s back-and-forth ultimately shows is that which platform is “winning” can look completely different depending on whether you measure by concurrent viewers, sales figures, or survey data.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch hardware/industry (“Geha”) board thread “[Sad News] Turns Out Japan’s Game Market Share Really Is Nintendo 90%, Everyone Else 10%.”
Leave a Reply