I guess most people don't remember or aren't old enough to realize that Sony's first party games were a huge factor in making the PS1 a success in Japan, Gran Turismo, Hot Shots Golf, Crash, Parappa, Arc the Lad were really big games that drived the adoption of the console, all of them were million sellers in Japan only, that died down a little bit with the PS2 but they were still strong , from there and they barely produce games like that since the PS3 (they still tried with PSP) or gives them minimal attention, focusing instead on their western output.
But I think the main reason is that the japanese gamers have mostly got tired (or grew out?) from most of the popular third party franchises from the late 90's/early 2000, games that made the SNES but mostly Playstation 1 and 2, very popular at the time, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy were multi-million sellers, games like RE, Tekken, Kingdom Hearts, Dynasty Warriors even Onimusha were million sellers, and a big, and I mean BIG amount of games like Metal Gear, Tales of, Star Ocean, Xenogears, SaGa used to sell almost a million only in Japan, those last few just shows how Square used to be the main driver of big software but not anymore, and now of the few of all those franchises that survive are still tied to playstation, who doesn't have the desire to make it's platform grow in that market anymore, and third parties have not been able to produce interesting games for it's own market mostly with the excuse of chasing the west, it is a vicious cycle.
Now only Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter are able to sell more than 2 million locally, Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts barely scratches the million and from there is a huge divide from games that can sell 400k-500k. Momotaro is showing that you can still be successful with the right focus and in the right platform.
I think it's safe to say that, without the hybrid feature, Switch wouldn't be nearly as appealing to Japan as it is. I don't think it makes sense to call the Switch a home console, when the main appeal is that it's also a portable. It needs to be recognised for what it is--something new and disruptive, which overlaps with both the console and portable segments.
The main appeal is that is both, and you can use it the way you prefer to use it and depending of the situation nor the handheld nor the console is more important. And the fact that it has the games that japanese are currently interested in.
This forum has a huge problem with Nintendo fanboyism.
Switch is selling, and is the only platform selling. 15 years ago, PS2, PSP, GBA, NDS and Wii were selling all together and with good numbers. Nowadays only one platform is selling and tracking 3DS on sales until last year that finally catched up.
Mobile is where is it. Anyone who has put theirs feet on Japan can tell.
I think you have to split those between PS2/GBA and PSP/NDS/WII, the PS4/3DS/VITA period will end up selling a lot more than PS2/GBA/GC/ combo. Nothing is ever touching the PSP/NDS/WII period, that was the peak of the dedicated hardware market everywhere.
