To be fair the Nintendo 64 launched about 1,5 years later than the Sega Saturn. If you look at them launch alligned in the first year, second year ... sales are more or less the same despite the N64 being way cheaper at launch, 25.000 Yen vs 44.800 Yen, and quickly getting discounted pretty heavily. Both consoles only got supported for barely for 4 years in Japan anyway.
The N64 managed to have more million sellers in Japan, 9¹ vs 1, cause of the huge difference in how many games were released for each system. N64 got 198, the Sega Saturn 1.057 in Japan.
¹ Mario Kart 64, Super Mario 64, Super Smash Bros, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Mario Party 2, Mario Tennis, Donkey Kong 64, Pocket Monsters Stadium (didn't get released in the west, we ended up getting Pocket Monsters Stadium 2 as Pokémon Stadium) and Pocket Monsters Stadium Gold & Silver aka Pokémon Stadium 2
Still the real battle for console sales supremacy during those years was between the Nintendo Gameboy + Gameboy Colour and the Playstation 1. Until the release of Pokemon in Feburary 1996 the Gameboy was pretty dead sales wise but thanks to word-of-mouth and the big multi media push with stuff like the Anime Pokemon would turn into a huge phenomen in Japan by late 1996 and single-handedly revive the Gameboy.
Thanks!
To go back to the overall console war between the Sega Saturn and the Playstation 1 in Japan. It only really lasted from Novemeber 1994 to Late 1996 since even before the release of FF7 the gap in units sales had already grown to 600.000 units.
What most people also forget is that in 1995 the SNES was still by far the dominating console. SNES Console sales weren't terribly far behind the PS1 and Saturn during 1995² but more importantly game sales were still far bigger on SNES than on either PS1 or Saturn.
Of the 7 games released that year that sold more than a million copies in Japan, 6 were released on the SNES³.
By 1996 the winds of change were starting to blow with only 3 of the 7 games released that year being on SNES⁴ but even then only 2 were on PS1. The Playstation Peak Years in Japan ended up being from early 1997 until mid 2001, so more so during the Years of the Dreamcast and after Sega Saturn's market relevancy in Japan was already over ⁵.
² from April 1994 to March 1995 the SNES sold 2.650.000 consoles in Japan, from April 1995 to March 1996 the SNES sold 1.780.000 consoles in Japan and from April 1996 to March 1997 the SNES sold 620.000 consoles in Japan
³ Derby Stallion 3 , Chrono Trigger, Yoshi's Island, Romancing SaGa 3, Donkey Kong Country 2, and Dragon Quest 6. Virtua Fighter 2 would be the first game released for a non-Nintendo console to sell more than a million in Japan ending 12 years of total Nintendo domination.
⁴ Super Mario RPG, Donkey Kong Country 3 and Dragon Quest 3 SNES
⁵ I did a pretty big writeup on Playstation games sales in Japan by year on the Install Base Forum so got read that if you wanne know more
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