Japan: Famitsu sales for August 2021 (Software, Hardware, Publishers)

Famitsu have shared their latest monthly report on video game sales in Japan, this time covering August 2021 (to be more precise, the period going from July 26th to August 29th, so 5 weeks in total).

Last month, the best-selling game in Japan was Yu-Gi-Oh! Rush Duel: Saikyou Battle Royale!!. It had the best debut for the series since 2002, and sold no less than 122 530 units at retail alone in August.

The second entry in the Top 5 Software is Tsukihime -A piece of blue glass moon-, which sold 72 237 units at launch on Nintendo Switch. An extremely strong debut… a tad too strong in fact, for retailers completely ran out of copies of this version during the second week.

The rest of the Top 5 Software is made of extremely familiar evergreen titles. Quite interestingly, Minecraft was the best-selling one of the bunch! Mario Kart 8 Deluxe also had a strong month, and with 77 708 units sold in August it became the 4th Nintendo Switch game to reach 4 million units sold at retail alone.

Here’s the Top 5 Software for August 2021:

01./00. [NSW] Yu-Gi-Oh! Rush Duel: Saikyou Battle Royale!! <TBL> (Konami) {2021.08.12} (¥6.000) – 122.530 / NEW
02./00. [NSW] Minecraft # <ADV> (Microsoft Game Studios) {2018.06.21} (¥3.600) – 79.466 / 2.153.053
03./00. [NSW] Ring Fit Adventure # <HOB> (Nintendo) {2019.10.18} (¥7.980) – 78.350 / 2.788.621
04./00. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe <RCE> (Nintendo) {2017.04.28} (¥5.980) – 77.708 / 4.009.933
05./00. [NSW] Tsukihime: A Piece of Blue Glass Moon # <ADV> (Aniplex) {2021.08.26} (¥7.000) – 72.237 / NEW

As you can see, the Nintendo Switch managed to grab all 5 spots in the Top 5 Software this month again. The same is unlikely to happen in September.

NSW – 5

In August, Nintendo was once more the most successful publisher (and by a wide margin) with 650 000 units. Since there was no release in August, those sales come exclusively from evergreen titles and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD’s second month. That being said, the company did sell less games than in July (689 000 units sold), despite the 5 weeks in August.

Konami also had a strong August with 250 000 units sold. Those sales come from Yu-Gi-Oh! Rush Duel: Saikyou Battle Royal, Momotaro Dentetsu: Showa, Heisei, Reiwa mo Teiban!, and eBaseball Professional Baseball Spirits 2021: Grand Slam. The company sold even more games than in July (192 000 units sold).

Finally, Type-Moon was the third most successful publisher with 138 000 units sold, which come from the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 versions of Tsukihime -A piece of blue glass moon-.

1. Nintendo – 650 000 units sold
2. Capcom – 226 000 units sold
3. Konami – 192 000 units sold

In August, the Nintendo Switch sold 361 151 units, which is more than in July (287 622 units). However, Famitsu’s tracking period for August has 5 weeks (vs. 4 weeks for July), so it would appear the increase in sales isn’t all that noteworthy (not that the console did not sell well in August; quite the opposite!). September should see a notable drop in sales, especially with the long-awaited start of pre-orders for the OLED model.

+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
|System | This Month | Last Month |  Last Year |     YTD    |  Last YTD  |     LTD     |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
| NSW # |    361.151 |    287.622 |    557.544 |  3.650.230 |  3.611.983 |  20.990.604 |
| PS5 # |     78.019 |     58.979 |            |    740.431 |            |     995.581 |
| XBS # |     15.578 |     11.094 |            |     51.872 |            |      83.296 |
| PS4 # |      6.824 |      3.817 |     15.357 |     90.824 |    465.109 |   9.381.714 |
| 3DS # |      2.251 |      2.435 |      4.965 |     20.549 |     41.984 |  24.579.457 |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
|  ALL  |    463.823 |    363.947 |    578.053 |  4.553.906 |  4.122.098 |  57.201.957 |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
|  PS5  |     64.115 |     49.275 |            |    625.219 |            |     831.841 |
| PS5DE |     13.904 |      9.704 |            |    115.212 |            |     163.740 |
| XBS X |      7.883 |      7.060 |            |     32.065 |            |      56.941 |
| XBS S |      7.695 |      4.034 |            |     19.807 |            |      26.355 |
| NSW L |     58.939 |     54.902 |    127.408 |    958.859 |  1.506.897 |   4.030.951 |
|  NSW  |    302.212 |    232.720 |    430.136 |  2.691.371 |  2.105.086 |  16.959.653 |
|  PS4  |      6.824 |      3.817 |     12.395 |     90.600 |    288.758 |   7.805.991 |
|n-2DSLL|      2.251 |      2.435 |      4.747 |     20.549 |     39.489 |   1.184.512 |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+

Source: Famitsu
Data compiled by: Chris1964 (ResetERA)

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