The Japan Preview: 10/3 Edition (Pokémon Wins Again) - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 04 October 2010 / 5,344 Views
Summary & A Look Ahead:
Portable software continues to dominate in Japan. Nintendo's Pokémon Black/White had another strong week, topping 350,000 units in its third week on the Japanese market. Dead Rising 2 had a modest opening, topping 100,000 across two platforms. Overall though, the console side of the Japanese video game software business will remain quiet until Super Mario Collection and Kirby's Epic Yarn initiate the wave of stronger fall releases. With the 3DS not set to release until February 2011, DS and PSP - particularly during Monster Hunter Portable 3 week - should continue outclassing the Wii and PS3 console software markets for most of the weeks remaining in 2010.
Preorders are starting to really build for major fall titles. Gran Turismo 5 for the PS3 releases in early November, and it has 140,000 preorders. Super Mario Collection for the Wii has roughly 70,000 preorders with several weeks left before release. Kirby's Epic Yarn has about 12,000 preorders with two weeks until release. Capcom's sure-fire mega hit Monster Hunter Portable 3 has nearly 860,000 preorders with several months yet before release.
Understanding the Japanese Preview:
Rather than saying x game for y platform sold between 20,000 and 28,000 units as in the past, the preliminary data will be broken down into charts by platform. Within these charts, there will two additional categories besides the rounded sales figure under ‘sales’. On the left will be ‘low end’ depicting the lowest amount the title likely sold for the week, while to the right will be ‘high end’ depicting the highest amount the title likely sold for the week. As always, this data is preliminary, and therefore, not final, but it is based on a sample. The varying platform market share the sample represents is why consistent sellers like Wii Fit Plus do not always appear in the preliminary data. Sales for this report are for the week ending October 3, 2010.
Software by Platform:
Figures are listed by the age of the platform, for the top twenty sku information that we recieve early.
Wii Software - For the week ending October 3, Wii software sales were fairly quiet in Japan. Other than Wii Party, NSMB Wii, Mario Kart Wii, Wii Fit Plus, and Super Mario Galaxy 2 are likely the only titles that will top 5,000 units in the final data. Over the next few weeks though the evergreen software that pushes the Wii will be fortified nicely by Kirby's Epic Yarn, Super Mario Collection, and Donkey Kong Country: Returns. We've likely seen the lowest level Wii will reach in 2010 as the big titles will arrive shortly. Expect Wii hardware sales to remain in the 14,000 to 18,000 unit range for the week. With Wii now lapping the 2009 price cut, Wii's gains over 2009 will shrink a bit from the 100k+ they stand at now over the next few weeks. However with the strong software coming, the situation should return to flattish sales until December as Wii sales stabilized at 30,000 per week before between Oct 1 and Dec 1 in 2009.
PS3 Software - Dead Rising 2 opened at an ok level on PS3, but it was nothing special. The game performed far better on X360 relative to user base, but still sold much better on PS3. Expect PS3 hardware sales to rise into the 20,000 to 24,000 unit range for the week. PS3 has now sold about 1.97m over the last 52 weeks, putting it about 250,000 units off its all time sales pace - however with GT5 and Move there should be some stabilization after the FFXIII week is lapped.
X360 Software - A new Monster Hunter Frontier sku opened well on X360, as did Dead Rising 2. Expect X360 hardware sales to rise into the 4,000 to 8,000 unit range for the week on the new software.
PS2 Software - No titles charted. Expect PS2 hardware sales to remain in the 1,000 to 2,000 unit range for the week.
PSP Software - The PSP had a good week for software again. More PSP games sold over 5,000 units this week than on any other platform. Nonetheless, with Pokémon still selling well, the DS software market remained much larger overall. K-On did quite well, topping 150,000 units and likely to push towards 300,000 units lifetime in Japan. Zero no Kiseki/Zero Locus did fairly well too in its opening and will likely be a profitable title eventually. Expect PSP hardware sales to rise into the 45,000 to 55,000 unit range for the week.
DS Software - Pokémon continues its sprint towards 4m units and beyond in Japan. The fall-off rate is already slowing tremendously - Pokémon may end up stabilizing at 100,000 units or more per week for several weeks...and then rise again in December & January when DS sales climb. Okamiden did pretty well for a somewhat niche game, and will likely reach well over 100,000 units in Japan before it stops selling. In addition to the titles above, Art Academy, Inazuma Eleven 3, Friend Collection and NSMB DS should all end up selling more than 5,000 units in the final data. Expect DS hardware sales to fall into the 60,000 to 80,000 unit range for the week.
Contact VGChartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com
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Okamiden at #3, behind the obviously top-selling Pokemon... Lovely! :-)
Salnax,
Sales of consoles depend on the amount of software available for that platform during the year, month, or week. You can list games for the Wii with higher sales than games on the PS3 but the PS3 has had more support from the major developers in Japan than the Wii. This is the reason why the PS3 is selling better than the Wii.
@ethomaz Yeah, but when you look at the sales for games, there doesn't seem to be any huge game like the handhelds or Wii have. The best selling game the PS3's had this year is Yakuza 4, which has been outsold by the 2009 hits NSMBW and Wii Fit Plus as well as Wii Party and SMG2. So why is the Wii selling less?
@Salnax
Because it was doing so well in the world after Slim/price cut and great games launch.
I never understood why the PS3 was doing so well in Japan...
Dead Rising at 80k on PS3 is pretty good. It could have been a big deal if it were a Playstation franchise from the beginning, though. Japan loves zombies!
PS3 sales are just incredible.
Its funny how it is estimated to have 360 sales triple and quadruple from a game that is going to sell around 14,000 copies.
Pokemon is just incredible.
Gran Turismo 5 up 15k preorders this week... will end near 250k.
Pokemon is just a beast,,, 70000 preorders for mario 25th thats a good number for a limited edition, wondering how much it could sell LT... Kirby is still low (12K ), and only has two weeks before release,,, Hopefully it will pick up soon...
