Japan: more sales data for Week 27 2018, Famicom Jump 50th Anniversary, Q1 FY18 (Media Create, Dengeki)

More sales data from Japan, with the latest reports from Media Create, Dengeki, and Famitsu!

Media Create (Week 27)

Today, Media Create shared its weekly report on video games sales in Japan. It reveals that Software sales topped 273 000 units, which is 89.89% of Week 26 sales. That drop was partly due to new releases, which only sold 28 000 units this week (82.56% of Week 26 sales). Hardware-wise, sales are also down with 73 000 units sold (90.31% of Week 26 sales).

The real star of the week was the Nintendo Classic Mini: Family Computer Weekly Shonen Jump 50th Anniversary Edition, which was extremely popular.

According to Media Create (the only tracker to share sales for it), it sold no less than 111 000 units at launch. It looks like there is strong demand from fans of series like Captain Tsubasa and Kinnikuman, and players who grew up with Nintendo consoles and are now ages 30 to 40. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like people who did buy it ended up purchasing anything else…

Source: Media Create

Day 1 sell-through (Media Create)

This week, we have the Day 1 sell-through for just one, lone Nintendo Switch game:

• [NSW] Shining Resonance Refrain (Sega) – 30%, with low shipment. Not too surprising for a late port of JRPG first released on PlayStation 3, then on PlayStation 4 (so it’s the 2nd port in a row).

Source: Media Create
Via: hiska-kun (ResetEra)

Dengeki (Week 27)

According to Dengeki, Mario Tennis Aces sold 31 000 during its third week on the market, and was the best-selling game in Japan for the 3rd week in a row. It’s now sold over 210 000 units, which means sales have topped 200 000 units in just 3 weeks… not too shabby!

Just below that game we have Minecraft, which sold 22 000 units this week and 114 000 units since launch. Finally, Splatoon 2 just keeps on selling with 15 000 units this week, and 2 472 000 units since launch.

This week, Dengeki also share some interesting data: the Top 5 of the best-selling new IPs in 2017 in Japan. It’s as follows:

1. 1-2-Switch (Nintendo Switch): 468 000 units sold
2. ARMS (Nintendo Switch): 439 000 units sold
3. The Snack World: Trejarers (Nintendo 3DS): 278 000 units sold
4. Ni-Oh (PlayStation 4): 152 000 units sold
5. Blue Reflection (PlayStation Vita): 77 000 units sold

As you can see, only 4 games from brand new IP sold more than 100 000 units, and none of them actually reached 500 000 units (at retail alone).

As pointed out several times in the past, the sales gap between popular and unpopular games has been constantly increasing with the rise of Free 2 Start games on smart devices, and most sales are now concentrated around sequels and games from popular series. And yet, for the market to be healthy, there is an urgent need for popular new IPs, that become hits.

Finally, Dengeki also shared some data for the First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2018 (April to June):

• Hardware: 906 000 units (-16.3%) / 26.5 billion Yen (-10.8%)
• Software: 4 550 000 units (+1.9%) / 30.4 billion Yen (+19%)
• Total: 59.6 billion Yen (+3%)

Dengeki explain that the peak for the First Quarter was in Fiscal Year 2012, with 85.6 billion Yen. The market has been down every Q1 since then, for 5 consecutive years. However, 2018 is different with the first increase in 6 years. Naturally, they expect that this upward trend will continue in Q2!

Next, here’s Software sales for each platform:

Platforms	This week	This week (%)	Fiscal Year	Fiscal Year (%)
PS4	90,405	34.0％	1,828,533	38.1％
Vita	19,945	7.5％	395,260	8.2％
Switch	127,763	48.0％	2,059,808	42.9％
3DS	26,302	9.9％	491,999	10.2％
ETC	1,619	0.6％	29,624	0.6％
Total	266,034	100.0％	4,805,224	100.0％

And here’s Hardware sales:

Platforms	This week	This week (%)	Fiscal Year	Fiscal Year (%)
PS4	19,942	26.9％	266,059	27.1％
Vita	2,387	3.2％	37,847	3.9％
Switch	44,328	59.9％	561,264	57.2％
3DS	7,251	9.8％	112,892	11.5％
ETC	148	0.2％	2,427	0.2％
Total	74,056	100.0％	980,489	100.0％

Finally, here’s the Top 50 Software:

01./01. [NSW] Mario Tennis Aces (Nintendo) {2018.06.22} – 31,400 / 210,589
02./02. [NSW] Minecraft (Microsoft Game Studios) {2018.06.21} – 22,289 / 114,456
03./00. [PS4] Zanki Zero: Last Beginning (Spike Chunsoft) {2018.07.05} – 16,274 / NEW
04./03. [NSW] Splatoon 2 (Nintendo) {2017.07.21} – 15,033 / 2,471,661
05./05. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo) {2017.04.28} – 9,528 / 1,627,160
06./00. [PSV] Zanki Zero: Last Beginning (Spike Chunsoft) {2018.07.05} – 8,771 / NEW
07./04. [PS4] The Crew 2 (Ubisoft) {2018.06.29} – 8,415 / 24,095
08./08. [NSW] Kirby Star Allies (Nintendo) {2018.03.16} – 6,050 / 575,605
09./10. [NSW] Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Nintendo) {2018.05.03} – 5,022 / 194,393
10./11. [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo) {2017.03.03} – 4,561 / 790,584
11./12. [PS4] Kingdom Hearts HD I.5 + II.5 ReMIX (Square Enix) {2017.03.09} – 3,920 / 176,744
12./13. [NSW] Super Mario Odyssey (Nintendo) {2017.10.27} – 3,828 / 1,674,078
13./06. [PS4] New Gundam Breaker (Bandai Namco Games) {2018.06.21} – 3,654 / 75,086
14./15. [PS4] Detroit: Become Human (Sony Interactive Entertainment) {2018.05.25} – 2,661 / 73,562
15./23. [PS4] Winning Eleven 2018 (Konami) {2017.09.14} – 2,562 / 159,896
16./07. [NSW] Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (Nippon Ichi Software) {2018.06.28} – 2,519 / 9,539
17./16. [NSW] Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 01: Variety Kit (Nintendo) {2018.04.20} – 2,183 / 188,731
18./20. [NSW] FIFA 18 (Electronic Arts) {2017.09.29} – 2,161 / 138,467
19./26. [3DS] Pokemon Ultra Sun (Pokemon Co.) {2017.11.17} – 2,056 / 830,367
20./17. [PS4] FIFA 18 (Electronic Arts) {2017.09.29} – 1,950 / 112,459
21./21. [PS4] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 2018 (Konami) {2018.04.26} – 1,878 / 217,166
22./00. [PS4] Far Cry 3: Classic Edition (Ubisoft) {2018.07.05} – 1,813 / NEW
23./18. [PS4] Dark Souls Remastered (From Software) {2018.05.24} – 1,794 / 118,546
24./14. [PS4] Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star Link (Marvelous) {2018.06.07} – 1,793 / 104,146
25./29. [3DS] Pokemon Ultra Moon (Pokemon Co.) {2017.11.17} – 1,761 / 806,063
26./25. [PS4] Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege – Advanced Edition (Ubisoft) {2018.03.01} – 1,544 / 63,755
27./19. [PS4] Super Bomberman R (Konami) {2018.06.14} – 1,488 / 11,545
28./31. [NSW] The Snack World: TreJarers (Level 5) {2018.04.12} – 1,461 / 99,241
29./28. [NSW] Pokken Tournament DX (Pokemon Co.) {2017.09.22} – 1,400 / 274,496
30./34. [NSW] ARMS (Nintendo) {2017.06.16} – 1,206 / 438,646
31./32. [PSV] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 2018 (Konami) {2018.04.26} – 1,200 / 102,676
32./37. [NSW] 1-2-Switch (Nintendo) {2017.03.03} – 1,194 / 467,975
33./36. [PS4] Grand Theft Auto V: Premium Online Edition (Take-Two Interactive Japan) {2018.06.14} – 1,162 / 5,788
34./48. [NSW] Little Nightmares: Complete Edition (Bandai Namco Games) {2018.06.07} – 1,133 / 13,471
35./38. [NSW] Dragon Ball: Xenoverse 2 for Nintendo Switch (Bandai Namco Games) {2017.09.07} – 1,083 / 190,002
36./24. [PSV] Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star Link (Marvelous) {2018.06.07} – 1,069 / 48,035
37./35. [3DS] Animal Crossing: New Leaf – Welcome amiibo (Nintendo) {2016.11.23} – 1,067 / 364,111
38./00. [PSV] Seven Days: Anata to Sugosu Nanokakan (Prototype) {2018.07.05} – 1,022 / NEW
39./41. [3DS] Mario Party: The Top 100 (Nintendo) {2017.12.28} – 994 / 210,414
40./46. [PS4] Cities: Skylines – PlayStation 4 Edition (Spike Chunsoft) {2018.04.12} – 938 / 36,173
41./33. [PS4] Little Nightmares: Complete Edition (Bandai Namco Games) {2018.06.07} – 933 / 11,769
42./09. [PSV] Kurenai no Homura: Sanada Ninpou Chou (Idea Factory) {2018.06.28} – 920 / 6,590
43./40. [PS4] Minecraft: Playstation 4 Edition (Sony Interactive Entertainment) {2015.12.03} – 917 / 324,799
44./39. [PS4] Persona 5 (Atlus) {2016.09.15} – 861 / 445,825
45./27. [PS4] Record of Grancrest War (Bandai Namco Games) {2018.06.14} – 811 / 17,723
46./45. [3DS] Kirby Battle Royale (Nintendo) {2017.11.30} – 794 / 180,344
47./53. [PS4] NieR Automata (Square Enix) {2017.02.23} – 783 / 395,166
48./42. [NSW] Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido (Nintendo) {2018.06.08} – 767 / 10,940
49./49. [PS4] Grand Theft Auto V (Take-Two Interactive Japan) {2015.10.08} – 756 / 380,576
50./57. [NSW] Sumikko Gurashi: Sumikko Park e Youkoso (Nippon Columbia) {2017.12.07} – 744 / 78,557

Source: Dengeki
Top 50 data compiled by ZSaberLink (ResetEra)

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