Few people can be said to know the Japanese gaming industry as deeply as Hirokazu Hamamura. He is the current president of Weekly Famitsu's publisher Enterbrain and he had a long tenure as the magazine's Editor-in-Chief. As such, his connections run far and wide.
Regarded by many as an industry legend, Hamamura-san talked about the situation of home consoles in Japan with the local website Mantan Web.
He mentions that the home console market improved in the past few years. Nintendo did not expect to sell as many units of the Switch as it did, and the PS4 is also selling well, thanks to good games like Final Fantasy XV and Dragon Quest XI.
Speaking of Final Fantasy XV, Hamamura-san mentions that he has heard that Final Fantasy XV has now shipped seven million copies worldwide (the latest update from Square Enix was six million back in January 2017, so this shouldn't be too surprising) and he considers it a "huge success."
He also explained that looking at the worldwide market, while the popularity of FPS games is still overwhelming, cool Japanese-style games are also selling well, including NieR: Automata, NiOh and Persona 5.
Hamamura-san then moved on to talk about Monster Hunter World, mentioning that the game has the potential to sell 10 million units worldwide over the long-term, especially when the PC version (which will release in fall 2018) goes on sale on Steam. In recent years the life cycle of games has changed, and it isn't as much a matter of selling many physical copies at launch, but also of selling over a long time span as prices get gradually cut.
Hamamura-san has no doubt that the game will be popular in Japan. The open beta test was crowded beyond expectations and he also heard that pre-orders are above Capcom's predictions. He also expects it to push sales of PS4 units, as there are many players that have been waiting for a new mainline Monster Hunter game on home consoles.
Monster Hunter World will release worldwide on January 26th, for PS4 and Xbox One, with a PC version coming in the fall.