The Japan Preview: 12/18/11 Edition (Vita Launch, FFXIII-2 launch) - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 18 December 2011 / 11,540 Views
Preliminary figures from Japan are in this week. Data for this week indicates that a huge amount of money was spent at Japanese retail, as Vita launched, and Final Fantasy XIII-2 put up large (in absolute terms) numbers. A lot of other software also increased from last week, and several Vita games had respectable launches. That said, there was no Layton on 3DS like launch figure for any Vita game - none of the new Vita titles topped 100,000 units or got anywhere close to that kind of figure week one.
1) Final Fantasy XIII-2 (PS3) - 670,000* (likely 700,000 - 740,000 with hw bundles, there were 140,000 FFXIII + PS3 hw bundles in 2009 against 1,370,000 standalone FFXIII units, so presumably there are up to 70,000 bundles for FFXIII-2)
2) Monster Hunter Portable 3G (3DS) - 175,000
3) Inazuma Eleven Go Dark / Shine (3DS) - 164,000
4) Mario Kart 7 (3DS) - 163,000
5) Super Mario 3DLand (3DS) - 94,000
6) Kirby's Return to Dreamland (Wii) - 58,000
7) Blazblue: Continuum Shift Extend (PS3) - 49,000
8) Just Dance Wii (Wii) - 46,000
9) Hotshots Golf (Vita) - 44,000
10) Lord of Apocalypse (Vita) - 38,000
12) Pokepark 2 (Wii) - 35,000
12) Uncharted: Golden Abyss (Vita) - 35,000
13) Taiko no Tatsujin Wii: Ketteiban (Wii) - 32,000
15) Mario & Sonic at the London Olympics (Wii) - 29,000
15) Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs. (PS3) - 29,000
In addition to the games above, Lord of Apocalypse (Vita), Wii Sports Resort (Wii), One Piece: Gigant Battle 2 - Shinseka (DS), Nintendogs + Cats (3DS), and Wii Party (Wii) will likely chart in the final top 20 data as well.
The big stories for the week are Vita and Final Fantasy XIII-2 for PS3. Back in December 2004, PSP sold about 166,000 units week one in Japan. Vita should be two to four times bigger than that for hardware, although top PSP software in 2004 sold over 65,000 units week one - mainly because PSP had only six games at launch, compared to over 20 for Vita. Most Vita games likely sold 10,000 - 20,000 units this week, but given how large this week was for software, that puts most Vita games outside the preliminary data. Vita could easily see 15-20 games amount to say, 225,000 units, with the top three games mentioned above adding another 95,000 units or so. Vita will be a gift for many people, so the attach rate may not quite be one Vita game per Vita sold initially.
Figures for Final Fantasy XIII-2 came to 670,000 for the week, excluding another 5-10% that were likely bundled with PS3s. That was within the range presented last week, as preorders reached 365,000 for Final Fantasy XIII-2 the night before launch. In absolute terms, the launch was one of the biggest of the year. On the other hand, Final Fantasy XIII sold twice as many units when PS3 had over three million fewer users. Given how quickly Final Fantasy XIII dropped from week one to week two when launching in December, it is fairly likely that Final Fantasy XIII-2 will sell only 80,000 - 120,000 units next week and then struggle to reach 1m units in Japan. Final Fantasy XIII never reached 2m after opening to 1.5m - and so Final Fantasy XIII-2 could die off right around 950,000 or so which is pretty low for a mainline Final Fantasy game. Depending on how many Final Fantasy hardware bundles were sold, PS3 could top 100,000 units this week, which would just about get it to its 2010 pace. Anything less than 100,000 though, and PS3 (like Wii, PSP, DS, X360, and PS2) will likely end the year down in Japan from 2010.
Even with Sony enjoying a tremendous week in Japan, software sales for Nintendo platforms were quite strong this week. Leggy essential Wii software shot up rather nicely for the week, and Monster Hunter, Mario Kart, and Marioland held nicely for 3DS as Inazuma Eleven opened well. Nintendo hardware typically increases around a third this week in Japan, so 3DS could be at 500,000+ units this week if Inazuma Eleven provided a lift in addition to seasonality.
Assuming 3DS / Vita did the expected hardware numbers this week, Japan is now trending ahead of the 2010 pace for hardware and will end the year slightly up on a unit basis even with Wii, DS, PSP, PS2, X360 and possibly PS3 declining from 2010.
Contact VGChartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com
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"which is pretty low for a mainline Final Fantasy game"
XIII-2 is not a mainline Final Fantasy game !!
Thank you!
Exactly. Got so annoying that he would mention it was every preview just to downplay how well it does. Of course, most know this is just a spin-off of FF13, not a main entry in the series.
yes @VXIII VGChartz is wrong...THIS IS NOT A MAINLINE FF, it is just a sequel and for a sequel the sales are GREAT. This game is awesome, and will do well on USA and Europe too for sure.
Its about time we had a huge Week in Japan! I love the Holiday Season! :D
So here's what I'm getting out of this:
- FFXIII sold 1.5 million first week when there was a 4 million PS3 install base in Japan.
-
FFXIII-2 sold 700K first week when there was a 7.30 million PS3 install base in Japan.
Make of that what you will.
You should add somewhere that we are only tracking 2 days of vita software.
I really think with Vita DD sales will start to take bigger partion of total SW so tracking Vita SW will be a lot more difficult. Of course with next quarter reports we will see just how big partion of the games were sold digitally (as normally shipments are very close to actual sales in Japan)
Very pessimistic on FFXIII-2 i see, if the game is much better than XIII, the word-of-mouth effect could be really strong since the PS3 userbase is so big now.
I still think it may go to 1M in Japan if it gets good word of mouth, I also heard that square-shipped only 1M, Due to low pre-orders
XIII 2 is being treated as a mainline FF by SquareEnix. Even, as a sequel, the sales are horrible low.
how is it being 'treated' as such?
Hmm...How big would 500k be in this time of year for systems first week?I think ps3 did something like 80k.
this is such a big range for PS Vita launch 320 - 650k.. it will definitely fall in this range I wish Source has given a bit smaller range.
Maybe 20k for FFXIII-2 on 360? XD
yes @VXIII VGChartz is wrong...THIS IS NOT A MAINLINE FF, it is just a sequel and for a sequel the sales are GREAT. This game is awesome, and will do well on USA and Europe too for sure.
It's a pretty baseless assumption to predict such a huge drop for FFX13-2 week two like FFX13. That game was set to be a pure front loaded game, everyone that wanted to buy it, knew about it and bought it that same week. This time around, people will need to be convinced. It will be a 200kish for week 2.
@Galvanizer it means FFXIII sucks that is why nobody want to buy FFXIII-2
quareEnix should just stop making games
Good week for Sony and for 3DS.
Even though it is sad for some of the consoles to be dying of in sales, it's nice to see the DS, PSP, and PS2 are doing worse.
Now don't take it the wrong way, though. It's a good thing because that means that people are paying attention to the new consoles, which is a really good thing! Although the XBOX 360 has never done well in Japan, so really nothing new there. Anyway great opening/legs for all the top 6 :D
Yaaay! Over 600k for FFXIII-2 ^.^
175k for MH ?
wow that means vita hardware will be between 332 - 664, even if its closer to the lower end of that, its stil a pretty decent number :)
Compared to the 3DS however, this isn't that special. Then again PSP had a super weak debut in Japan.
I dunno, I expected more, but it seems this small number isn't bad for a Playstation handheld in Japan. Just odd to see a huge difference from 3DS, which also had no major software titles at launch.
^^^
Yes. close to 400K. in March.
^^^
374,164 . in February
To all the tro... people complaining about the "2 to 4 times bigger", the Japan Preview hasn't given HW numbers for a very long time, and I don't think it has access to it, so stop complaining so much and be thankful you have SW so early on the week.
Look a it this way : FFX-2 was a direct sequel to FFX but never sold as much as it. So if FFXIII-2 doesn't drop too quickly it will be in line with the series' history. Furthermore I spent the week-end on FFXIII-2 and I can say it's extremely good! It should have no problem reaching 1m with a good word of mouth.
... Given how "detailed" this preview is I'll just wait for Media crate's numbers.
To all the tro... people complaining about the "2 to 4 times bigger", the Japan Preview hasn't given HW numbers for a very long time, and I don't think it has access to it, so stop complaining so much and be thankful you have SW so early on the week.
Two to four times bigger launcg? This is joke right? Why not just tell you have no idea how much it sold.
"Two to four times bigger than the PSP Vita launch in December 2004." How precise...
Its a preview based on preliminary data. What more do you want? We have no other numbers, anywhere.
Ye because selling 700k units on firts week on one region alone for a game were the production cicle was 1 third of 13s and the overall efort of production was very smaller is alwhays a flop...
I shouldn't have included "Flop" in my post. Re-post time!
