Japan: more sales data for Week 52, holiday period (Media Create, Dengeki)

Media Create – Week 52, holiday period

Today, Media Create released its weekly report for video game sales in Japan, providing us with more sales data for Week 52. During that week, Software sales topped 785 000 units, and Hardware sales topped 183 000 units, which is 41.21% and 53.18% of Week 51 sales respectively: after two weeks of increases, sales naturally dropped sharply during the post-Christmas week.

Media Create notes that during the holiday period (November 14th to January 1st), the market saw a drop in sales, mainly due to Hardware (with the Wii U as the prime suspect). Software sales remained stable (101.13% of sales during the same period last year), while Hardware sales dropped sharply (87.85% of sales during the same period last year).

And this year, the top-selling games’ share in total sales for the holiday period has increased even further. In other words, the top-selling games sold more, while the rest sold less. Here’s the data shared by Media Create to illustrate this:

• Total sales for Top 10: 6.74 million units (70.7% of total sales)
• Total sales for Top 20: 7.38 million units (77.3% of total sales)
• Total sales for Top 30: 7.75 million units (81.2% of total sales)

Last year, sales were as follows:

• Total sales for Top 10: 5.61 million units (59.4% of total sales)
• Total sales for Top 20: 6.59 million units (74.1% of total sales)
• Total sales for Top 30: 7.07 million units (74.1% of total sales)

As you can see, games from the Top 10 had a much bigger share this year, which indicates that sales for games outside that Top 10 were weaker. According to Media Create, there’s several reasons those sales were weaker, including less people visiting shops, higher digital ratio, shortages for some titles, etc..

Naturally, Media Create hopes that the Nintendo Switch will be able to have a raise the whole market up in 2017.

Source: Media Create

Dengeki – Week 52, 2016

First, here’s sales data for individual version of certain games:

• Pokémon Sun – 47 800 units (1 538 599)
• Pokémon Moon – 44 078 units (1 408 919 units)
• Puzzle & Dragons X: Kami no Shou — 2 578 units (122 309 units)

Next, here’s the best-sellers for 2016

1. [3DS] Pokémon Sun and Moon (The Pokémon Company): 3.27 million units
2. [3DS] Yo-kai Watch 3: Sushi / Tempura (Level-5): 1.38 million units
3. [PS4] Final Fantasy XV (Square-Enix): 870 000 units
4. [3DS] Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS (Nintendo): 790 000 units
5. [3DS] Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 3 (Square-Enix): 650 000 units

Dengeki notes that due to a lack of new releases, sales dropped during Week 52:

• Hardware: 193 000 units (-50.4%)
• Software: 809 000 units (-58.4%)

As for 2016 (December 28th to January 1st), sales are as follows:

• Hardware: 5.25 million units (-4.3%)
• Software: 32.99 million units (-6.7%)

Dengeki notes that 2016 marked the 9th year of consecutive drop for the video game market in Japan, following the peak in 2017 (753.3 billion Yen):

• Hardware: 131.5 billion Yen (-5.8%)
• Software: 192.5 billion yen (-5.1%)
• Total: 324 billion Yen (-5.4%)

And here’s how the various platforms fared in 2016:

• PlayStation 4: +56.8%
• Nintendo 3DS: -14.4%
• Wii U: -48.6%
• PlayStation Vita: -0.6%

Finally, here’s a chart for Software sales for each platform:

Platform	This week	This week (%)	2016 Total	2016 Total (%)
PS4	169,784	21.0％	6,588,732	26.8％
PS3	11,016	1.4％	1,060,131	4.3％
Vita	81,720	10.1％	3,122,193	12.7％
Wii U	41,817	5.2％	1,346,558	5.5％
3DS	504,188	62.3％	12,431,869	50.6％
X One	299	0.0％	34,223	0.1％
Total	808,824	100.0％	24,583,706	100.0％

Source: Dengeki