The Japan Preview: 1/29/12 Edition (Armored Core 5, RE: Revelations)
by Jacob Mazel, posted on 29 January 2012 / 4,254 Views
Software sales increased substantially this week on the release of two fairly big, but frontloaded games - Armored Core 5 for PS3 and X360, and Resident Evil: Revelations for 3DS. Tales of Innocence: R for Vita also charted in the preliminary data, although it will do little more than provide a tiny bump this week given how low the opening for the game was. The lift should be similar to the first Resident Evil bump for 3DS in June 2011, which pushed 3DS to 27,000 from 23,000 on a 60,000 opening.
1) Armored Core 5 (PS3) - 195,000
2) Resident Evil: Revelations (3DS) - 160,000
3) Tales of Innocence: R (Vita) - 51,000
4) Armored Core 5 (X360) - 35,000
5) Monster Hunter Portable 3G (3DS) - 26,000
6) Mario Kart 7 (3DS) - 21,000
7) Super Mario 3D Land (3DS) - 20,000
9) Rhythm Kaitou R: Koutei Napoleon no Isan (3DS) - 10,000
9) Inazuma Eleven Go Shine / Dark (3DS) - 10,000
10) Final Fantasy XIII-2 (PS3) - 9,000
12) Just Dance Wii (Wii) - 8,000
12) Monster Hunter Portable 3 (PSP) - 8,000
13) Go Vacation (Wii) - 6,000
15) Kirby's Return to Dreamland (Wii) - 5,000
15) Musou Orochi 2 (PS3) - 5,000
In addition to the games above, Wii Sports Resort (Wii), Wii Party (Wii), Wii Sports Resort (Wii), Danball Senki (PSP), and Nintendogs + Cats (3DS) should be in the final top 20 data for the week.
Armored Core opened well on PS3 and X360 this week, but the series typically declines pretty quickly in week two, so whatever push X360 hardware (and possibly PS3 hardware) gets this week will be just for this week. The same goes for Vita with Tales - Tales games typically decline very quickly. The Tales of Xillia pattern was 525k-->50k-->20k in three weeks for the PS3 game. What Vita really needs is a breakout hit to sell for a long time like Monster Hunter or Wii Sports did, pushing a bit of hardware each week allowing publishers to experiment with software in a healthier hardware environment. There remains no evidence that such a hit is anywhere near arriving for Vita though.
Resident Evil is typically fairly front loaded as well, but should plateau at a higher level than Armored Core and push hardware for say, up to two weeks instead of up to one week. Capcom and Level 5 have proven rather well now that there is a sizable (read: profitable) 3DS core audience in Japan - Monster Hunter, Inazuma Eleven, Layton, and Resident Evil all work on the platform. The question going forward is what else works - we should see a lot of experimentation with that this year by various publishers. Nintendo also claimed at its earnings briefing that 3DS will have a lot of strong software coming because 3DS sold well after the price cut, so 2012 now looks rather bright for 3DS in Japan.
Outside the new releases, the Japanese industry remained very quiet, with only 3DS seeing games released before this week still selling over 10,000 units. Hardware sales nonetheless should remain excellent compared to early 2011, as combined pre-3DS hardware was only selling around 100,000 units at this point in 2011, while total hardware should reach at least 130,000 units this week, with 160,000 or more not out of the question. 3DS certainly looks like it will clear 5m units in February, within a year of its 2011 launch, which is impressive. PSP is now trending a fair bit ahead of Vita in an aligned launch in Japan (~535,000 in 7 weeks for Vita, 5 for PSP), but once more games start arriving, the gap should close a bit.
Contact VGChartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com
28 Comments
Nice to see a Vita game around the top. Also, great opening for Resident Evil: Revelations! If these numbers are right, it is already the 11th best selling 3DS game in Japan, and should have no trouble becoming the next million seller for the system. Speaking of million sellers, this will be Capcom's second on the 3DS, with Street Fighter 4 becoming a likely 3rd. I expect they'll be planning another 3DS project or two...
Gasp! A VITA game in the Top 15?! I love the RE Opening though! Very good job. I wonder how many 3DS units exactly it pushed.
SM3DL and MK bumped down a bit. They now enter the enduring legs phase.
Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land's numbers make up for about a third of all 3DSs sold. They won't sell as fast now, but they'll keep selling for years. Mario Kart in particular will reach the 20 million mark without a doubt. Not so sure about SM3DL because it'll have self-competition from the 2013 2D Mario.
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not sure if people realise, but RE:R is very important for the future of 3DS, because it's one of the first non-Nintendo core games, and if it succeeds, it will encourage more parties to put their games on 3D pretty good opening, and it's pushed a lot in the UK, hopefully will be good in US as well, and the demo helps for sure! not bad for Tales
RE:R's success won't matter, because third parties will claim that only Nintendo and Capcom games sell on the 3DS.
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@Carl Exact? No, 3DS never sold less than 20k in weeks before the pricecut announcement.
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@Carl And if thats true then that is very bad for the vita because third parties canceled games and postponed them because of low sales and it was thanks to nintendo that things are better now but Sony depends too much of third parties for that to happen to them
5) Monster Hunter Portable 3G (3DS) - 26,000 The name of the game, as you can read from the japanese box, is "Monster Hunter 3G", without "Portable".
So hardware boosts for 3DS, Vita, 360, maybe PS3. Good to see Japanese hardware doing something.
Wait.... Tales for vita released this week alongside RE Revelations? Man Nintendo wtf XD.
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Probably because From Software, is more popular now, after release Dark Souls. And Japanese gamers want more games from them.
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I figured the same, but I wonder why The Source only chose to speak of how the game will drop off fast and not mention that the game had a ~60% bump over the next closest Armored Core launch.
Highest selling Armored Core lifetime in japan accoridng to VGChartz is at 230k. Armored Core V if these numbers are correct has hit that already in it's first week.
I am surprised Source failed to mention that and instead opted to only talk about how it is going to drop off.
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So is this Tales game now the 2nd best selling game on Vita? or is Uncharted Vita ahead of it?
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This will be the 2nd best selling Vita game in about 2-3 weeks. I'm not really sure where Uncharted is, but it's currently 2nd.
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For all those who have RE Revelations: Do you think the Raid Mode can give it legs?
The last preview was very accurate, so I would expect those numbers to be ok. The demo sold me on the getting RE:RE.
"which pushed 3DS to 27,000 from 23,000" - I think people have long forgotten the 3DS was in the exact same situation as the Vita is now.
On another note - Monster Hunter, Mario Kart and Mario 3D show just how much the Vita needs to be able to compete.
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The NA and EU benefit more from the launch line up than the Japanese market did. There were great games available for the Japanese launch, just nothing that can be considered a system seller for them. It'll be interesting what happens for the launch of the Vita in the NA and EU markets.
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Saying ''exact same situation'' simply isn't true. Roughly similar perhaps. Firstly there is a big difference between the 14k PSV did last week and the 23k quoted above.
Secondly with the 3DS we knew Mario, Mario Kart, Zelda etc were all coming reasonably soon and would be guaranteed big sellers. As of yet we still don't really know any big titles for the Vita in Japan this year. Potentially the remake of FFX if it manges to launch this year. Possibly the port of monster hunter 3g if it comes this year?
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And if thats true that is very bad for the vita because third parties canceled games and postponed them because of low sales and it was thanks to nintendo that things are better now
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It's not necessarily bad for the Vita, MANUELF. Third parties have shown in the past that they are willing to run their business at a loss in order to help Sony.
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The 3DS was never in such a bad situation in Japan as the vita now. And Sony has not the possibility to cut the vita price as drastic or has nearly such big games in sight as the 3DS had last year and this year.
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What an opening for Armored core, RE done well also, & if FF XIII-2 numbers are true, then the game is holding well till now
mmmm nice opening for Tales R, Ragnarok Odyssey hits next week, then wonder what Gravity Daze will open with in 2 weeks time... seems some modest sized hits lined up for Vita (until the Monster Hunter Vita hits later this year)
Well RE5 opened with over double of those numbers on PS3 with far smaller install base. Still solid figures for a spin off. In the otherhand it really seems that Souls series increased From Softare's reputation a lot as those AC5 numbers are already more than double of the AC4 lifetime numbers.
Vita really needs is a breakout hit to sell for a long time like Monster Hunter or Wii Sports did, pushing a bit of hardware each week allowing publishers to experiment with software in a healthier hardware environment. There remains no evidence that such a hit is anywhere near arriving for Vita though exactly what i had in mind when writing my original comment
3ds may have been in the same situation but it was still selling more then vita is now during that time what makes that worst is vita launched during the holidays . the busiest time of the season vita will be ok but there are some who insist it will over take 3DS and those people will be wrong because well the psp had the same problem in the west --- console ports. and if vita does not get somthing other then what consoles get . - then whats the point in owning one! especally for those online oriented games your better off playing those on console. games like cod have already tried to suceed on handhelds before -psp and ds any one
Vita isn't getting console ports. You look at the games being released for it and they are games built around the features of the Vita.
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I don't understand how console port was a problem for the PSP when this port are the best seller game in the psp instead of the new IP like Loco Roco or Patapon
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It took the 3DS 14 weeks to have a bigger post launch software debut (One Piece) than Tales on Vita and this doesn't include PSN downloads.
Armored Core 5 on the PS3 vs X360 just shows off the massive difference between console install base over there! Glad to see a Vita game potentially in the top 3.
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vita is really dead... if one tales game not can saved this portable nothing more can... =/
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Tales isn't that big a franchise, there are plenty of games that could save Vita; main series GT, FF, GTA are all examples of big series that could help Vita.
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Tales of Innocence is just an upgraded port of a DS game, so don't throw in the towel so soon.
There will be bigger games and they will bomb too, that will be the time to panic.
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