Switch Helps Push Physical Game Sales Up 15% in Japan - News

by William D'Angelo , posted on 10 July 2017 / 5,885 Views

The successful launch of the Nintendo Switch has helped push Japan's physical video game market up 14.8 percent during the first six months of 2017, according to Famitsu. This is the biggest year-on-year growth in Japan since the first half of 2014. The market reached ¥153.2 billion in revenue.

Hardware revenue increased 44 percent year-over-year to ¥76.51 billion, while software revenue fell 4.6 percent to ¥76.69 billion.

The Nintendo Switch was the best-selling console with sales over one million units in four months. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sold 502,000 and 460,000 copies, respectively.

The PlayStation 4 sold 878,000 units,an 18 percent increase year-over-year. The Nintendo 3DS sold 873,000 units.

Monster Hunter XX was the best-selling game with sales of 1.64 million units, followed by Pokemon Sun and Moon with sales of 528,000 units.

Thanks MCVUK.

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.

6 Comments

Teeqoz (on 10 July 2017)

The title makes it seem like physical software sales are up, but in reality software sales are down, it's just made up by an increase in hardware, primarily driven by the Nintendo Switch. I wouldn't call hardware sales "physical game sales". It confused me at least.