The Japan Preview: 1/1/12 Edition (3DS Dominates as all SW Falls) - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 01 January 2012 / 6,845 Views
The year, like in most other places, goes out with a bit of a whimper in Japan following the massive action that occurs in mid December. January is still a strong month, but individual weeks won't be substantially better than this one for quite some time going forward, and this week saw a huge drop from the previous two weeks in December.
1) Mario Kart 7 (3DS) - 157,000
2) Monster Hunter Portable 3G (3DS) - 107,000
3) Super Mario Land 3D (3DS) - 90,000
4) Final Fantasy XIII-2 (PS3) - 81,000
5) Musou Orochi 2 (PS3) - 59,000
6) Just Dance Wii (Wii) - 46,000
7) Inazuma Eleven Go Shine / Dark (3DS) - 42,000
8) Kirby's Return to Dreamland (Wii) - 37,000
9) SD Gundam G Generation 3D (3DS) - 22,000
10) Monster Hunter Portable 3 (PSP) - 19,000
11) Shin Kamaitachi no Yoru: 11 Hitome no Suspect (Vita) - 17,000
14) Rhythm Heaven Wii (Wii) - 16,000
14) Mario Kart Wii (Wii) - 16,000
14) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (PS3) - 16,000
15) Magician's Quest: Oshare na Mahou Tsukai (DS) - 15,000
In addition to the games above, Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2011 Ketteiban (PSP), Frontier Gate (PSP), Inazuma Eleven Strikers 2012 Xtreme (Wii), and Wii Sports Resort (Wii) should all chart in the final top 20 data for the week.
As this is still a holiday week, Pokepark 2, Taiko Wii, Mario & Sonic, Wii Party, One Piece: Gigant Battle 2, Nintendogs + Cats, Go Vacation, Family Fishing, Danball Senki, Uncharted Vita, Hot Shots Golf Vita, Kirby: Mass Attack, and Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs. should all still be seeing decent sales as well on Wii, DS, 3DS, PSP, Vita and PS3. The top 20 likely cuts off at 12,000-15,000 this week, with the top 30 still at about 10,000 units - well above the usual size of Japanese market but nothing like last week either when 32 games topped 20,000 units.
The major trend to watch this week is how portables behave. In 2006, the final week of the year ended December 31 exactly. DS dropped from about 500,000 in the December 24, 2006 week to 179,000 in the December 31, 2006 week. PSP fell from 138,000 to 66,000 over the same time period. The rate of decline varies a bit year to year though. During the week to December 25, 2005, DS sold 603,000 units and PSP sold 155,000 units. The following week DS sold 410,000 units and PSP sold 114,000 units. With the Japanese celebrating 'Coming of Age Day' this coming January 10th, and an exact alignment for tracking, this week should follow the 2005 pattern (which had Coming of Age Day on January 9th 2006). Theoretically, that means 3DS and Vita will be at about 350,000 and 50,000 units respectively, unless demand overwhelms the drop off, with DS and PSP likely to fall to roughly 7,000 and 67,000 units. Wii and X360 should fall by about one-third also, although PS3 will likely be about flat. Any deviation from the expected roughly 30% (+/- 5%) drop this week for hardware should be taken as a positive omen if demand holds up better than expected, or a bad omen if demand drops off worse than expected.
Some kind of hardware and software rebound may come during the first week of 2012, it has happened in the past in the week ahead of Coming of Age Day, but a rebound notably didn't happen last year. Depending on what happens over the next two weeks, we could be seeing 3DS setting up to sell 1m+ per quarter for at least a little while - DS topped 1m per quarter from Q4 2005 to Q1 2008 without interruption. Peak December week sales typically decline to an average of anywhere from one tenth to one third of the peak on a weekly basis in the January to March quarter and 3DS just had a 500,000 peak in December.
As far as software goes, not much of note happened for the week. Leggy Wii, DS, and 3DS titles are still dominating the chart. The dearth of major content for PSP late in 2011 as Sony focused on the Vita has amounted to neither platform being well represented. Vita does not look like it will really start to come on as a big software platform until mid-year, as there just isn't much releasing in the short term, and most launch day software has already declined quite a bit. Preorders are pretty lousy for all upcoming Vita titles in the near term, so any chance of strong software sales before the next major infusion of games will essentially be tied to the hardware picking up and lifting existing titles over the next few weeks. Nothing of note stands out for PS3, PSP or Wii software either - all three bases are large enough now that software opening below several hundred thousand units will not push hardware - which means that both could easily be down against Q1 2011 in Q1 2012. 3DS should be the major platform in Japan for at least the early part of 2012 - and possibly much longer - if major software doesn't start coming to Vita or the other rapidly aging platforms.
Contact VGChartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com
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What is 'Monster Hunter PORTABLE 3G'? There is no such game for 3ds.
Looks like Nintendo is dominating Japanese charts again! It seems MHP3rd came out of nowhere though! :)
"The Best" version of 3rd was released that week, I think.
3DS! Japan needs your help! Quickly, show us the power of Resident Evil, Metal Gear, Kid Icarus, New Love Plus, Ace Combat, Beyond the Labryinth, Tekken, Kingdom Hearts Rhythm Thief and Final Fantasy so that we may observe the relevance of the Japanese market.
great preview as always thx. Hopefully next weekwe could get some preorder numbers for RErevelations, new love plus and such....
Good to See FFXIII-2 still selling, might as well sell 850,000 unites, I heard that's what square shipped, any way 3DS is bringing Nintendo back to the front again in Japan
Big huge blow to Sony MH for the 3DS was.
Great third week for FFXIII-2! The drop stays lower than previous entries and shows better legs. They very well might sell all shipment without loss.
Monster Hunter <3
Wow 3DS!
What's the outlook for Tales of Innocence on Vita in Japan?
Seriously, there's really never any call for using "going forward" in an article, unless it's to describe the motion of an object. It's the same as writing "ummm". Verbally it's merely a filler while your mind works out what you're going to say next, just like ummm.
Seems like a reasonable hold for FFXIII-2 it may top out at 1 million if it's as good as some people say and word of mouth overcomes the inertia created by FFXIII.
I look forward to more of the sources articles going forward
So Modern Warfare 3 owns Zelda again...
Except for the Memory cards
