The Nintendo Switch had a big 2019, having recently surpassed 41.67 million worldwide sales, including 2 million Switch Lites sold in the first 11 days on sale. Now, thanks to charts provided by Famitsu, we can see just how well the Switch did in Japan in 2019 compared to all other consoles.
These statistics come from French Twitter user Oscar Lemaire, and have been translated by Dualshockers.
Sur l’année 2019, Nintendo détient quasiment 80% du marché des consoles au Japon. 76% rien que pour la Switch, dont les ventes augmentent de 29% par rapport à 2018, ce qui permet de compenser le déclin de la PS4 et la 3DS, et stabiliser le secteur. (chiffres Famitsu) pic.twitter.com/uGqmES5lst
— Oscar Lemaire (@oscarlemaire) January 8, 2020
They show that the Switch sold 4,493,903 units in Japan last year, up 29% from 2018, which accounts for 76% of console sales in the country for the year. The Switch’s total sales in Japan are now up to 11,383,449. Nintendo also sold 191,173 3DS units in the country during 2019, which means sales of Nintendo’s aging clamshell handheld were down 66%.
The PlayStation 4 managed the second highest sales with 1,196,153 units sold (down 29%), while the PlayStation Vita only sold 37.668 units (down 79%.) Right at the bottom is the Xbox One, which sold a terrible 8315 units in Japan last year, accounting for just 0.1% of total console sales in the region for 2019.
Later in the same Twitter thread, Lemaire says that this was Nintendo’s best year in the entire period Famitsu has tracked, from 1999 until 2019. With the PlayStation 4, 3DS, Vita, and Xbox One all being at the end (or past the end) of their lifecycles, it’s likely that the Nintendo Switch will dominate most of 2020 too–although it remains to be seen how the release of the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 will impact sales.
