The Japan Preview: 9/4/11 Edition (No Major New Releases) - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 04 September 2011 / 5,226 Views
Software sales dropped just about across the board this week in Japan, in the absence of major new titles. The PS3 and 3DS price cuts of recent weeks have also not helped older software for those platforms, since there have not been too many major titles over the past few months capable of selling well for a long period of time. Thus, with no major new titles this week, PS3 should be back to roughly pre-price cut levels, somewhere between 20,000 and 28,000 units, while 3DS will likely remain further ahead of its pre-cut levels, at anywhere from 40,000 - 550,000 units. PS3 should at least temporarily spike back up next week on the Tales of Xillia bundle. For this week, Monster Hunter remained the top-seller, although it dropped off pretty quickly.
1) Monster Hunter Portable 3 HD Edition (PS3) - 70,000
2) Grand Knights History (PSP) - 55,000
3) Devil Survivor: Overclock (3DS) - 25,000
4) Sengoku Musou 3 Empires (PS3) - 24,000
6) Rhythm Heaven Wii (Wii) - 14,000
6) Mobile Suit Gundam: Shin Gihren no Yabou (PSP) - 14,000
7) Black * Rock Shooter: The Game (PSP) - 13,000
8) The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (3DS) - 12,000
10) Corpse Party: Book of Shadows (PSP) - 11,000
10) Atsumete! Kirby (DS) - 11,000
13) Pokemon Scramble (3DS) - 10,000
13) Shin Sangoku Musou 6 Special (PSP) - 10,000
13) MonHun Nikki: Poka Poka Ailu Mura G (PSP) - 10,000
14) Call of Duty: Black Ops (PS3) - 8,000
15) All Kamen Rider: Rider Generation (DS) - 6,000
In addition to the games above, Wii Sports Resort (Wii), Pokemon Black / White (DS), Inazuma Eleven Strikers (Wii), Nintendogs + Cats (3DS), and Epic Mickey (Wii) should also crack the final set of top 20 data for the week.
The video game industry typically 'dies down' to some extent in Japan during September to late November, and then rapidly expands from November 25 through about January 5. Even with some fairly major titles in September, October looks pretty quiet. Many weeks prior to November shoud look like this one over the next two months, with popular long-selling software and relatively minor new software dominating the charts week in and week out. Even much of September could look like this week, as its not entirely certain that Tales of Xillia and Dragon Quest Collection will have more than one-two weeks each above 100,000 units sold in Japan.
Tales of Xillia releases September 8th in Japan, and is getting its own PS3 bundle that week. Non-bundled editions of the game have 275,000 preorders a couple days before release, suggesting an opening around 450,000-500,000 units for bundled and non-bundled editions of the game. Tales games are somewhat infamous for rapidly declining though - week two could be 80,000 - 120,000 units, making week three and on largely irrelevant to pushing PS3 hardware. Dragon Quest Collection for Wii releases the following week, and currently has preorders of 100,000 units. At the moment Dragon Quest Collection looks like it will open at 200,000 units, although more (or less) is possible is preorder rates change substantially this week. Dragon Quest titles typically have fairly decent holds for RPGs after week two, so Collection should provide more of an extended 'modest bump' for Wii in comparison to the brief spike PS3 will see next week.
Beyond those titles, its hard to say what will happen in Japan before the Tokyo Game Show, when several major titles should get release dates. The one known wild-card for October is Just Dance Wii, which is to be published by Nintendo and features more Japanese content than the Western / Ubisoft published edition. In theory the title could sell something like 250,000 units in Japan, but its entirely possible that it could flop as well. Either way, the performance of the title will largely determine how Wii holds up over the 'dead' weeks in Japan of Oct-early November - even back in 2007 Wii had dropped to 20,000 units per week in October.
Contact VGChartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com
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Oh better hold than I expected for MH3HD. Xillia will be massive! It will become the best selling Tales game since the Destiny series.
"at anywhere from 40,000 - 550,000 units."
I know its a mistake, but i lold so hard.
Tales games on PS3 have actually shown rather extraordinary legs, we're just undertracking Vesperia. It's actually sold over 400k and is coming close to doubling its first week. With the recent rerelease it might actually be closing in on 450k.
40,000-550,000 kinda vague don't ya think?
PS3 have the best games with MH and Tales. awesome. and 2012 one pieceeee yeah
and hence type-0 in October has been ignored..also major release on ps3 rapid drop off...smaller opening big wii title steady legs for an rpg...sigh I miss last weeks preview, much more balanced
