The Japan Preview: 12/11/11 Edition (Monster Hunter 3DS, Skyrim) - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 11 December 2011 / 14,896 Views
The major releases of December continue to roll on out - this week had Monster Hunter Portable 3G for 3DS, and next week has Final Fantasy XIII-2 for PS3. This is also the last week before Vita launches in Japan which makes sense as PSP is definitely slowing down quite a bit in Japan with hardware declining and fewer and fewer titles putting up big numbers.
1) Monster Hunter Portable 3G (3DS) - 419,000
2) Mario Kart 7 (3DS) - 159,000
3) Super Mario 3DLand (3DS) - 92,000
4) The Elder Scrolls IV: Skyrim (PS3) - 76,000
5) Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs. (PS3) - 62,000
6) Usavichi: Game no Jikan (DS) - 42,000
7) Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Blast (PS3) - 41,000
8) Toaru Kagaku no Chou Denjihou (PSP) - 37,000
9) Kirby's Return to Dreamland (Wii) - 34,000
11) Just Dance Wii (Wii) - 28,000
11) Pokepark 2 (Wii) - 28,000
13) Taiko no Tatsujin Wii: Ketteiban (Wii) - 23,000
13) Metal Max 2: Reloaded (DS) - 23,000
14) Mario & Sonic at the London Olympics (Wii) - 21,000
15) One Piece: Gigant Battle 2 - Shinseka (DS) - 16,000
In addition to the games above, Skyrim (X360), The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii), Wii Sports Resort (Wii), Fortune Street (Wii), and Wii Party (Wii) should be in the final top 20 data for the week.
Data this week indicates somewhat poor planning for both Nintendo and Capcom. Monster Hunter Portable 3G ended up with 405,000 preorders on the eve of release, but Capcom apparently stuck to the 420,000 initial shipment it planned, with possibly a small second day shipment. Hence the game opened to figures weaker than the recent Wii and PSP mainline Monster Hunter games, but about 50% better than the recent PS3 port. Odds are with a bigger shipment Capcom could have sold at least 500,000 copies of Monster Hunter Portable 3G week one. In any case, this is normally the week hardware grows 50% just about across the board, so 3DS should be at 300,000 plus whatever hardware Monster Hunter pushed - very good numbers for Japan. Anything from 350,000 - 500,000 should be expected for the week.
Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword looks like it is suffering shortages of some kind, as even the most front loaded games typically sell 50% of week two in week three, but the data suggests Skyward Sword has not been replenished in the sample store or dropped below 16,000 from 32,000 last week. The first possibility is more likely. The other data for the week is fairly typical - Metal Max, Mario & Sonic, Skyrim, and Dragon Ball Z all performed about as well as games in those series have in recent years. Just Dance, Taiko, Kirby, and Pokepark are all following the traditional Wii pattern and lifting with hardware.
Data for the week ending December 18, 2011 should be fascinating in Japan, as the Vita launches December 17, and Final Fantasy XIII-2 arrives December 15. Sony still has given no guidance on Vita shipments for the March 2012 fiscal year, which to me means they don't expect it to be that relevant just yet. If they're only shipping 2-4m globally in four months in Japan and two months in the West, there might only be 250,000 Vitas or so shipped next week in Japan, although again that is a total guess as Sony hasn't indicated how many systems it can manufacture. Demand for Vita games certainly is not that high in Japan yet, although it is broadening. Uncharted Vita and Hot Shots Golf Vita have 20,000 - 25,000 preorders, Dyntasy Warriors Vita and Disgaea Vita have 10,000 preorders each. Unless hardware is much higher than 250,000 units week one, most Vita games could easily sell under 20,000 units launch week, with perhaps Uncharted & Hotshots Golf selling to one in five Vita owners each, and Dynasty Warriors & Disgaea selling to one in ten Vita owners each. That would leave 40% for Ridge Racer, Blazblue and the rest of the launch lineup, assuming around 250,000 games are sold for Vita week one. Vita doesn't launch until December 17, so look for an article with final preorder figures for Vita games mid-week.
The other big story for next week will be Final Fantasy XIII. With only three days of preordering left, Final Fantasy XIII-2 has 330,000 preorders. In contrast, Final Fantasy XIII preorders reached 1,035,000 at the aligned point before launch. There is simply no way that the gap will be bridged between the two preorder rates over the next few days. Final Fantasy XIII-2 preorders look like they will reach 340,000 - 375,000 units in Japan on the eve of launch, compared to 1.1m for Final Fantasy XIII the day before it launched. For Final Fantasy XIII, week one figures ended up being 50% higher than preorder totals at this point out from launch. If that were to happen with Final Fantasy XIII-2, the game would sell a bit less than 500,000 units week one. Most Western impressions of the game were strong at E3 and Leipzig though, so my suspicion is word of mouth will be better for Final Fantasy XIII-2 than for Final Fantasy XIII, making an opening of anywhere 450,000 - 700,000 possible week one. Nonetheless, the game does look like it will perform far worse than its predecessor in Japan, which is rather striking as it isn't a spinoff or built like FInal Fantasy XI / Final Fantasy XIV.
Contact VGChartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com
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Nope, actualy this is 3DS month... At least in Japan.
So they basically sold nearly every copy of Monster Hunter?
If those SML3D and MK7 numbers are true then...wow.
Skyrim did well!
3 3DS games in the top 3, awesome, if the numbers are true then 3DS HW will be over 1M WW and over 350K in Japan.
I agree its great to see Three 3DS titles at the top of the charts.
The MonHun numbers will depend on if Capcom were stupid or not. If they were stupid, they kept to the 420k shipment. If they weren't, they shipped at least another 50-100k.
Capcom is amazing but they always mess up the common sense, simple stuff
i mean with 405k pre-order, they had to ship about 500k of the game, not 420
i hope Skyward Sword is low on stock, too
nice to see top3 being 3DS titles, well deserved
Skyrim could be much bigger in Japan, it's an RPG afterall
This is the 3DS's week.
Man, the FF brand is on the verge of a collapse in Japan! I remember back when Capcom used to change the releases of their games to not coincide with a numbered Final Fantasy release back in the PS1/PS2 era. Now Capcom are like, "FF? What's that? Man, we own an IP that rapes FF. We ain't changing our release date for shit!"
MonHun is officially taken over FF as the third biggest IP in Japan after Pokemon and Dragon Quest. FF13 killed the FF brand, IMO. FF14 just added further fuel to the fire. They should have stuck to the FF12 battle system as that game plays similar to Monster Hunter but still uses ATB. Would have kept FF still being popular.
If [i]Final Fantasy XIII-2[/i] doesn't do all that well, then I think Square-Enix will have to take a look at their IP again and try to remember what made it successful. I'm sure the series will still have its share of followers, but Square-Enix will have to work hard to undo the damage it has done.
FF was dying in Japan way before XIII, each title decreased in sales.
FFXII was hated in Japan, led to FFXIII selling lower...and XIII was also hated
FFXII began FF's death in Japan, XIII finished it off.
Hmmm... so the total of ZELDA SKYWARD SWORD in Japan, if this report is true, is now currently at 242k. The third week #s are 10k less than TP's, but in SS's defense, TP's third week total was roughly around 200k. So SS is above that, but it also shows that ZELDA has the bigger fanbase in America.
Why is XIII-2 performance so shocking. Have you guys lived under a rock and not realized the bad word of mouth XIII got? A sequel to a game that wasn't received well at all is obviously going to do bad.
The FF brand is dying.
It isn't just on the internet. The bad word of mouth was everywhere.
Can't believe Capcom did not ship more units than they did. They could have easily been at 500k for the week with Monster Hunter. 3DS looks like its going to have another big week WW.
Horrible for Zelda... I hope the shortages issue is true, but that's only an assumption.
But 3DS sales should explode.
@TheSource
What about Inazuma for the 3DS? How many preorders does it have?
I wouldn't say horrible, just disappointing. Still, the possibility of shortages is likely. I think the game will do just fine; there's no need to worry. Granted it won't be the bestselling game of the franchise in Japan, but the series still has a following; the holidays are not done yet.
I'm so happy to see the Top 3 are all Nintendo 3DS games! =D
FFXIII-2 will have to rely more on legs and positive word of mouth.
Hope there's good legs for Skyrim in JP.
I'm confident FFXIII-2 will do 600k+ FW and leg out to 1 million LT.
I'll give you a thumbs up Boutros. I don't like that a perfectly good comment gets thumbed down just because some people disagree with it, but it is what it is. It's a fine prediction.
If the game is good then I also agree that it will hit a million in Japan alone, but I'm not getting it. XIII did to much damage to the Final Fantasy name for me. Then XIV added even more insult to what was a brilliant franchise.
Agree with you Boutros and Montana, If you thumb down you should express your disagreement, but anyways I don't think it will have 600k FW but like 500k or so. That said, i DO believe it will do like 1mill or 1.5m (yes Im optimistic) because of the word on mouth power. I'm sure this game is so much better than anyone expects, really.
If theres a franchise to be called front-loaded in Japan thats Final Fantasy. Also, used sells will kill any possibility for this game to go beyond the 800k mark, imo.
I guess, if XII-2 is a better game than XIII it will have better legs. But I doubt it will reach XIII's lifetime sales.
Very disappointed by Skyrim sales, damn Japanese people, they'll never by occidental games, even if they're better than their productions... Sadness...
Did anyone asked Japanese why they never buy occidental games, do they really don't like them or are they super patriotic ?
Major blow for Sony, to have Monster Hunter - the adult's version of Pokemon- on the 3DS instead.
indeed..
This needs to be localized.
gamescom is in Cologne and not in Leipzig anymore.
Looking at sales for Final Fantasy X-2, I'm really surprised the game sold nearly 80% as well as Final Fantasy XIII in Japan. I didn't think these types of games would sell that well.
Still, if FFXIII-2 can fit on a single X360 disk, then the game content has obviously been compromised.
This needs to be localized.
Stay a while and listen. Pacman is here to stay for a while.
Damn, Capcom low balling or Capcom low balling?
Horrible for Zelda... I hope the shortages issue is true, but that's only an assumption.
But 3DS sales should explode.
@TheSource
What about Inazuma for the 3DS? How many preorders does it have?
420k for MH? Dont want to believe.
It probably is shortages; ZELDA may not be as popular in Japan as it is in America, but the franchise still has a following, and its not like its overall total is 14k. It's still doing OK overall, but its second and third week numbers are quite low. That is not disputable. That said, I don't see SKYWARD SWORD failing in any territory. It already has found its audience in America, and to a lesser extent, Europe and Japan.
I agree on the XIII part, but IV was not bad.
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