Japan: Nintendo Switch Is Only 137k Units From Overtaking The PS4 Family’s Lifetime Sales

With every passing week, it looks like Sony’s corporate executives in Japan have more and more to fear from Nintendo’s powerhouse hybrid console.

This week, Famitsu’s hardware sales figures in Japan once again confirmed that the Nintendo Switch was steadily gaining ground against its competitor – the PlayStation 4. While the PS4 family of systems (PS4 + PS4 Pro) in Japan is still sitting pretty at 7,996,001 units in total lifetime sales, the Switch is now trailing closely behind at 7,858,769 units sold. This is merely a difference of around 137,000 units.

Check it out for yourself below, courtesy of the Game Data Library (highlighted in red).

What’s even clearer is that this gap is narrowing at a consistent pace. In the week before, the PS4 was around 164,000 units ahead of the Switch in Japan. And 2 weeks before, the PS4 was leading by 190,000 units over the Switch. At this current rate, basic math dictates that Japan’s Switch sales could overtake the PS4 family of systems within around 5 – 6 weeks.

To be sure, this is more indicative of how popular handhelds are in Japan. After all, the above figures above show that the 3DS has sold 24 million units to date in Japan – a massive leap compared to the non-handheld consoles. In that respect, it’s not too surprising that the Switch caught up this quickly in the land of the rising run, even if the PlayStation 4 had a head-start of 4 years in Japan.

We’ll be waiting to report back with more hardware sales figures in the future, within Japan or worldwide. Stay tuned.

Thanks, @KawlunDram