Famitsu published its monthly report looking at Japanese console game sales from October 26 to November 29, 2020. The main highlights of this report are the performances of the next-generation consoles that launched within the period. The PlayStation 5 sold a total of 201,435 units during its launch month in Japan. The aforementioned figure combined both the sales of the system’s regular and digital editions.
The PlayStation 5’s direct competitors, the Xbox Series X and S, sold just around 28,000 units combined in comparison. Famitsu noted that neither console was able to keep up with demands, so stores always had an extreme shortage.
During the launch week for both consoles in Japan, which lasted until Sunday, November 15, 2020, Sony sold 118,005 of PlayStation 5 standard and its digital edition units in 4 days total. Microsoft sold a combined total of 20,534 Xbox Series X and S units in 6 days. That means for the next 14 days until November 29, 2020, the PS5 sold 83,430 more units, while the new Xbox consoles only added around 7,500 more.
The current-gen Nintendo Switch continued to dominate the Japanese console game market, with 666,773 units sold in November 2020. The entire top five best selling games slots in the month were completely occupied by the Switch titles Momotaro Dentetsu: Showa Heisei Reiwa mo Teiban, Pikmin 3 Deluxe, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, Ring Fit Adventure, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
Japan was one of the first countries to receive the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 on November 10 and 12, 2020, respectively. The new consoles are now available in many more countries around the world.
