Trying to think about a proper reason why do they care about the numbers?
Is it in order to gloat Nintendo Japan dominance?
Or to ridicule MS Xbox in Japan failure?
Like... why do they care? What's so important? If a publisher is proud of its game number he will publish a PR about that.
Its pretty useful to understand whats going on with the industry.
The traditional industry is on fucking life support right now. Thats literally why all of the publishers are throwing shit at the wall and seeing what if anything sticks, and why releases are down across the board.
People who want to whine about AAA greed and Big Gaming fat cats
don't want the information putting why all those companies are doing shit like lootboxes into context.