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

7 December 20217 December 2021 Lite_Agent Atlus, Famitsu, Ilca, Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl, Shin Megami Tensei V, The Pokémon Company

Famitsu have shared their latest monthly report on video game sales in Japan, this time covering November 2021 (to be more precise, the period going from November 1st to November 28th, so 4 weeks in total).

To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Pokémon Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl is the best-selling game in November with 1.750.688 units sold at retail alone. A pretty impressive debut, as we discussed in this post, and sales are (extremely) unlikely to slow down before mid-January. There’s little doubt it will end up as the best-selling game this holiday season but also in 2021 as a whole.

The second entry in the Top 5 Software is Shin Megami Tensei V, which is off to a decent start with 175.236 units sold at retail alone. While it’s clearly no evergreen title, it should enjoy solid sales throughout the rest of the year and reach 200 000 units sold by then.

Quite interestingly, Mario Party Superstars actually sold more in November (201.253 units sold) than in October (163.256 units sold), but that’s exclusively due to the fact that it launched at the very end of October. Still, this new entry is selling pretty well (even better than Super Mario Party so far) and is guaranteed to be among the best-selling games this holiday season.

Here’s the Top 5 Software for November 2021:

01./00. [NSW] Pokemon Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl # <RPG> (Pokemon Co.) {2021.11.19} (¥5.980) – 1.750.688 / NEW
02./01. [NSW] Mario Party Superstars <ETC> (Nintendo) {2021.10.29} (¥5.980) – 201.253 / 364.509 (+23%)
03./00. [NSW] Shin Megami Tensei V # <RPG> (Atlus) {2021.11.11} (¥8.980) – 175.236 / NEW
04./00. [NSW] Animal Crossing: New Horizons # <ETC> (Nintendo) {2020.03.20} (¥5.980) – 52.634 / 6.968.435
05./00. [NSW] Ring Fit Adventure # <HOB> (Nintendo) {2019.10.18} (¥7.980) – 50.202 / 2.933.333

Thanks to strong new releases and solid sales for evergreen titles, the Nintendo Switch is the only platform with games in the Top 5 Software this month:

NSW – 5

But this time, Nintendo is not the most successful publisher in Japan: it’s The Pokémon Company with 1.792.000 units sold (with Pokémon Brilliant Diamond / Shining Pearl accounting for most of those sales, along with Pokémon Sword and Shield).

That being said, November was still a fairly good month for Nintendo games: they sold about 518.000 units. That’s a big drop compared to October (656.000 units sold), but it’s hardly surprising given the lack of new releases. Fortunately for Nintendo, their evergreen titles were there to compensate (no doubt they will enjoy even stronger sales in December!).

Finally, Atlus is the 3rd most successful publisher in November, and that’s pretty much exclusively due to Shin Megami Tensei V.

The Pokémon Company: 1.792.000 units sold
Nintendo: 518.000 units sold
Atlus: 176.000 units sold

Hardware-wise, Nintendo Switch sales are slightly down with 468.135 units sold (down from 476.183 units in October). That drop is primarily due to two things: massive shortages impacting the OLED model, and the November tracking period including only 4 weeks (vs. 5 weeks for October).

Despite that drop, the Nintendo Switch is as popular as ever. The OLED model getting sizeable new shipments these past few days bodes quite well for December and New Year. It looks like Nintendo’s console is once again poised to end the year on a highly positive note! So far, the console has sold 22.149.000, and will outsell the Nintendo 3DS within the next few months (24.585.982 units sold as of November 28th 2021).

Here’s Hardware sales for November 2021:

+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
|System | This Month | Last Month |  Last Year |     YTD    |  Last YTD  |     LTD     |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
| NSW # |    468.135 |    476.183 |    666.773 |  4.808.969 |  4.981.146 |  22.149.343 |
| PS5 # |     28.324 |     85.712 |    201.435 |    931.082 |    201.435 |   1.186.232 |
| XBS # |      9.241 |     18.520 |     27.811 |     91.346 |     27.811 |     122.770 |
| PS4 # |      2.380 |      4.944 |     15.810 |    103.730 |    507.377 |   9.394.620 |
| 3DS # |      1.692 |      2.067 |      3.642 |     27.074 |     60.477 |  24.585.982 |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
|  ALL  |    509.772 |    587.426 |    915.622 |  5.962.201 |  5.781.703 |  58.616.777 |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
|  PS5  |     24.651 |     73.038 |    164.438 |    789.169 |    164.438 |     995.791 |
| PS5DE |      3.673 |     12.674 |     36.997 |    141.913 |     36.997 |     190.441 |
| XBS X |      4.011 |      3.958 |     21.857 |     45.478 |     21.857 |      70.354 |
| XBS S |      5.230 |     14.562 |      5.954 |     45.868 |      5.954 |      52.416 |
|NSWOLED|    130.100 |    262.877 |            |    392.977 |            |     392.977 |
| NSW L |    118.085 |     45.053 |    118.237 |  1.162.803 |  1.834.455 |   4.234.895 |
|  NSW  |    219.950 |    168.253 |    548.536 |  3.253.189 |  3.146.691 |  17.521.471 |
|  PS4  |      2.380 |      4.944 |     15.425 |    103.506 |    327.108 |   7.818.897 |
|n-2DSLL|      1.692 |      2.067 |      3.489 |     27.074 |     57.546 |   1.191.037 |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+

Source: Famitsu
Data compiled by: Chris1964 (Install Base)

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