[Brief] Japan: more sales data for Week 19, 2016

Today, Media Create released its weekly report for video game sales in Japan, providing us with more sales data for Week 19. During that week, a total of 347 000 games were sold, which amounts to 72.37% of Week 18 sales. Naturally, the drop is due to the end of the Golden Week, which had a negative impact on sales.

But compared to the same week in 2015 (May 11-17), sales are significantly up. For Week 19 2016, they amount to 147.61% of Week 20 2015* sales (when 235 000 units were sold). This is obviously thanks to the release of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, which had a strong debut on PlayStation 4.

Then again, Week 20 2015 was a pretty bad week overall for the video game market in Japan, as total sales for new games only topped 25 000 units according to Media Create. Code Name S.T.E.A.M is one of the games that came out during that week, and it sold horribly. According to our calculations, roughly 2 000 units were sold during launch week!

* NB: the discrepancy in weeks is due to Media Creates counting 53 weeks for 2015.

Source: Media Create