The Japan Preview: 7/31/11 Edition (Rhythm Heaven Still Huge) - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 31 July 2011 / 6,368 Views
Preliminary data has arrived from Japan for the week ending July 31, 2011. It was a fairly quiet week for new releases, but several recent games continue to sell at very respectable levels, leading to a good week overall. With Nintendo's announcement of the 10,000 Yen 3DS price cut for August 11, 2011, 3DS software also completely vanished from the preliminary top software data, although it will likely show up in the final data, since that data includes more 'low information' consumers. The top games for the week are as follows:
1) Rhythm Heaven Wii (Wii) - 104,000
2) Queen's Gate: Spiral Chaos (PSP) - 57,000
3) Devil Survivor 2 (DS) - 56,000
4) Taiko no Tatsujin Portable DX (PSP) - 31,000
5) Inazuma Eleven Strikers (Wii) - 30,000
6) Sengoku Basara: Chronicle Heroes (PSP) - 28,000
7) Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2011 (PSP) - 22,000
8) Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2011 (PS3) - 21,000
9) Wii Sports Resort (Wii) - 16,000
10) Operation Flashpoint: Red Driver (PS3) - 14,000
11) Wii Play: Motion (Wii) - 12,000
12) Goldeneye 007 (Wii) - 11,000
13) Puyo Puyo!! Anniversary (DS) - 9,000
14) Pokemon Black / White (DS) - 8,000
15) Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition (PS3) - 7,000
In addition to the games above, Wii Party (Wii), Wii Fit Plus (Wii), Danball Senki (PSP), Nora to Koku no Koubou: Kiri no Mori no Majo (DS), and Mario Kart Wii (Wii) should end up in the final top 20 games for the week.
Rhythm Heaven, if the preliminary data is within 10% as it was last week, now looks like it could be a leggy million-seller on Wii. A drop from 120,000 to 104,000 from week one to week two is an excellent result, and with other Wii software steady or climbing, its possible Wii hardware went up a touch again this week. Its generally very rare for software to sustain at over 100,000 units per week in Japan, but it is somewhat common on Wii, particularly for multiplayer titles with party / competitive elments. Most recently, Donkey Kong Country Returns sold over 100,000 units for four weeks in a row even though it never sold over 200,000 in a week. Inazuma Eleven is showing a somewhat similar pattern - its held up about twice as well as you'd expect a normal game that opened around 75,000 units to perform over its post-launch weeks.
Looking ahead, August and September now look like pretty strong months in Japan. The 3DS price cut, which is a 40% discount, is coinciding with a Pokemon-spinoff title in two weeks. Capcom's HD remake of Monster Hunter Portable 3 is coming in late August, and is trending for an opening between 150,000 and 200,000 units at the moment with preorders at about 45,000 units. September then sees Tales of Xillia for PS3, alongside its PS3 bundle, and Dragon Quest Collection for Wii the following week, in addition to the ongoing 3DS lift.
The open question for Japan over the next few weeks is whether the 3DS cut will meaningfully lower PSP and DS hardware and software sales in Japan. 3DS, in theory, should harm both. The system is more powerful than PSP and DS, plays the DS library, and now costs about what PSP does, at a time when PSP is also about to get its successor, and right as 3DS starts to get a major string of games (Pokemon Scamble in August, Devil Survivor & Frogger in September, 3D Mario in November, Mario Kart in December). Some considering buying a DS or PSP will surely buy 3DS now that the price is cheaper and big titles are known to be coming. 3DS could easily stabilize at 45,000+ or more in the wake of the price cut, after an initial few weeks of 50,000-70,000, so the odds are simply from the perspective of retail space alone, that DS and PSP shelf space will shrink quite a bit in Japan over the next few weeks, particularly with little more than sequels and shovelware set to release for DS and PSP over the remainder of the year.
Sony and Nintendo are probably considering cutting the PS3 and Wii prices as well in Japan - with four fairly strong portables on the market over December-January, PS3 and Wii could be ignored by a fair amount of the gaming population in Japan without new incentives. With both baselines at decent levels now, and the usual string of big software for both platforms late in the year, price cuts would probably be most effective in September or November - depending on when major games set to release in 2011 (FFXIII-2, Zelda, Kirby) actually arrive.
Contact VGChartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com
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Really? Frogger was listed as a "major" release for 3DS? Really?
well week of August 12th sure is set to be interesting ^^
And FF Zero was listed as one of the "sequels and shovelware" :-D
Please Square Enix, bring Dragon Quest Collection to America, I want to play those classics on my Wii :)
Isn't Final Fantasy-Type Zero hitting Japan this year on PSP as well? Why wasn't it listed?
Why do you think ;-)
It's not cool enough for VGChartz.
wow, I didn't expect a second week like that for Rhythm heaven.. Goldeneye surprising well held up.. PSP continues selling software so well in Japan too
"big titles" haha, Mario and Mario Kart are not "big titles", they are just remakes of 15 years old N64 games. Nintendo makes me sick with their politic of evergreen franchises/games with almost no improvement (I can't tell the difference between MK N64 and MK Wii) . Anyway, Mario Kart was great on N64. Nice move from Nintendo for the 3DS price cut, but 40% is huge, which means Nintendo had not a politic of no money from HW but only from SW, they were hoping to earn a lot of money from HW from the start !
Really surprised that Goldeneye has held up this long.
When the hell is Dragon Quest X coming?
Man, I can't wait for fuckin' Rhythm Heaven!
Good to see Rhythm Heaven doing well
Yup. 3DS will outsell DS and PSP because it's more powerful.
/facepalm
Rhythm heaven looks like a good game, I believe handheld will continue to dominate in Japan, only way for WII or PS3 to sell big is to get the software that are released for handheld to their library
No words about epic mickey's release in late august?
See, Nintendo? All it takes is some actual releases, and the Wii sells fine.
this is more like the nintendo preview and why I think ninty will do fine in the future article really.
With many PS3 games in the top 20 pre order list I doubt that Gamers will ignore the PS3. Especially with a game like Tales of Xilia that becomes one of the most pre ordered Tales games ever..
Don't you think Rhythm Heaven is too high?
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