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

Famitsu have shared their latest monthly report on video game sales in Japan, this time covering October 2021 (to be more precise, the period going from September 27th to October 31st, so 5 weeks in total).

Mario Party Superstars was the best-selling game in Japan in October despite releasing at the very end of the month. It sold 163 256 units in just 3 days, which is a significantly better debut than Super Mario Party (126 275 units sold). Considering its predecessor went on to sell over 2 million units at retail alone, it would be quite surprising if this new entry didn’t manage to sell at least 1 million units. Sales during the upcoming holiday season should be quite strong.

Metroid Dread is the second best-selling game with 124 501 units sold. It’s been a long time since a Metroid game sold that well in Japan (see this post for more details), though unfortunately, single player games with little replay value like this one are unlikely to become evergreen titles. Still, a great performance for the game, especially if you factor in the (strong) digital sales!

Finally, Super Robot Taisen 30 is off to a great start with 70 849 units sold at retail alone in just 4 days. The Nintendo Switch version managed to outsell the PlayStation 4 version, which is the opposite of what happened with the previous entry (Super Robot Taisen T in 2019 sold 80 528 units at launch on PlayStation 4, and 38 218 units on Nintendo Switch).

Here’s the Top 5 Software for October 2021:

01./00. [NSW] Mario Party Superstars <ETC> (Nintendo) {2021.10.29} (¥5.980) – 163.256 / NEW <40-60%>
02./00. [NSW] Metroid Dread # <ACT> (Nintendo) {2021.10.08} (¥6.980) – 124.501 / NEW <80-100%>
03./00. [PS4] Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles # <FTG> (Aniplex) {2021.10.14} (¥7.600) – 120.196 / NEW <60-80%>
04./00. [NSW] Super Robot Wars 30 # <SLG> (Bandai Namco Entertainment) {2021.10.28} (¥8.600) – 70.849 / NEW <60-80%>
05./00. [PS4] The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Dark # <RPG> (Nihon Falcom) {2021.09.30} (¥7.800) – 60.435 / NEW <80-100%>

Thanks to strong new releases, the Nintendo Switch is the platform with the most games in the Top 5 Software this month:

NSW – 3
PS4 – 2

This month again, Nintendo is the most successful publisher with 656 000 units sold (a noticeable increase compared to September — 494 000 units sold). While the new releases did perform well, the usual evergreen titles also saw strong sales and actually account for the majority of this month’s sales.

Bandai-Namco is #2 with 225 000 units sold, with the two versions of Super Robot Wars 30 accounting for over half of those sales.

1. Nintendo: 656 000 units sold
2. Bandai-Namco: 225 000 units sold
3. SEGA: 145 000 units sold

Hardware-wise, October was a good month for the Nintendo Switch. Sales jumped from 214 421 units in September to 476 183 units in October. This is mostly due to the release of the Nintendo Switch OLED model, which is off to a great start 262 877 units sold (while sales of the OG and Lite model were rather stable).

Nintendo were not able to ship nearly enough units to meet demand, and so this new model was pretty hard to find in stores (with most retailers resorting to the infamous lotteries once more). Unfortunately, demand will continue to outweight offer throughout the rest of the year (and beyond), and so the contribution of the OLED model to total Nintendo Switch sales will be more limited than expected.

Here’s Hardware sales for October 2021:

+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
|System | This Month | Last Month |  Last Year |     YTD    |  Last YTD  |     LTD     |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
| NSW # |    476.183 |    214.421 |    360.288 |  4.340.834 |  4.314.373 |  21.681.208 |
| PS5 # |     85.712 |     76.615 |            |    902.758 |            |   1.157.908 |
| XBS # |     18.520 |     11.713 |            |     82.105 |            |     113.529 |
| PS4 # |      4.944 |      5.582 |     17.726 |    101.350 |    491.567 |   9.392.240 |
| 3DS # |      2.067 |      2.766 |      3.979 |     25.382 |     56.835 |  24.584.290 |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
|  ALL  |    587.426 |    311.097 |    382.153 |  5.452.429 |  4.866.081 |  58.105.313 |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+
|  PS5  |     73.038 |     66.261 |            |    764.518 |            |     971.140 |
| PS5DE |     12.674 |     10.354 |            |    138.240 |            |     186.768 |
| XBS X |      3.958 |      5.444 |            |     41.467 |            |      66.343 |
| XBS S |     14.562 |      6.269 |            |     40.638 |            |      47.186 |
| NSWEL |    262.877 |            |            |    262.877 |            |     262.877 |
| NSW L |     45.053 |     40.806 |     86.599 |  1.044.718 |  1.716.218 |   4.116.810 |
|  NSW  |    168.253 |    173.615 |    273.689 |  3.033.239 |  2.598.155 |  17.301.521 |
|  PS4  |      4.944 |      5.582 |     16.881 |    101.126 |    311.683 |   7.816.517 |
|n-2DSLL|      2.067 |      2.766 |      3.894 |     25.382 |     54.057 |   1.189.345 |
+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------+

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

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