Bravely Second: End Layer Passes 100,000 Sales in Its Launch Week in Japan

Nice to see Bravely Second off to a good start.

Gee, I wonder what will be #1 next week lol!

The 3DS remains static because there are five 3DS models for every Japanese person already (note: the above not actually a fact)

So when is Bravely Second coming to the west?

Huge gap between Bravely and the second place.

Lets play the prediction game for next week:

1) 25,000 Wii U for sales
2) 125,000 XCX sales
3) More then 1 posting about Wii U printing money

@Spoony_Tech well next week xenoblade, puzzle and dragons, and the dragon quest 10 expansions for wii and wiiu all come out. i would love xeno to get first but it will probably be p&d

@Spoony_Tech
Puzzle & Dragons

@Saizo @faint Well let's just say it's safe to say Nintendo will remain on top lol. Didn't realize Puzzle and Dragons came out there next week.

How has mario kart STILL not hit 1million sales in Japan? Its always in the chart!.next week will be interesting I wonder if the "disappointing" famitsu score or the hype trail will have a bigger effect on xcx.

@Saizo agreed but to take it a step further i think ninty will have the top 4 spots.
1. p&d
2. dragon quest ten wii expansion
3. xenoblade
4. dragon quest ten wiiu expansion

Well damn, that's a lot of sales!

That's a good start for Bravely Second, though it doesn't appear to have affected 3DS sales at all, which is unfortunate. Oh well.

The Playstation brand is returning to form--it's top-tier position from the PS1 and PS2 eras. I can't help but wonder if the strong sales and appeal of the PS4 may actually be partly responsible for helping the Vita find new footing.

Bravely Second looks good, I would expect a US release date at E3.

@Gerbwmu

So far, the Wii U has really only printed losses, so to say it "prints money" would be rather absurd.

Also, XC and XC 3D both failed to light up Japanese charts, so it's just as likely XCX will fail to do the same, unfortunately. There is a rabid fanbase for that franchise--but said fanbase is not very many people.

@Quorthon - just a bit of fun

Wow, big surprise. 3DS outsells everything and Wii U does appr. 7,000. It's like the results are just copy/pasted every week, only with a new set of games on the list.

@Gerbwmu

I was hoping. That poor thing hasn't printed money yet. As much as I'd like Xenoblade become a major franchise for Nintendo, I just don't expect them to be profitable with XCX.

Nintendo never talks about this kind of stuff--but it can be fairly estimated how much money has been spent on XCX, and that it is unlikely for Nintendo to make that money back. At one time, it was noted that Sega would have had to sell Shenmue to every single Dreamcast owner--twice to make a profit on that game, which clocked in at a then-unheard-of $70,000,000. I don't expect XCX to have cost less than $35,000,000 to develop over the last 4~5 years. Going by a general standard of around $30 profit per game (after manufacturing costs, shipping, and retailer costs), Nintendo would have to sell around 1.2 million copies of this just to break even.

Pro: It will have almost no competition and Nintendo fans are hungry for some games.

Con: Console has too few sales overall.
Con: The previous Xenoblade did not even reach a million in sales on a console with literally 10 times the sales.
Con: The previous Xenoblade also didn't have much competition.

Granted, then Nintendo also didn't advertise the game much, but now they're practically over-doing it on XCX.

@JaxonH Maybe a few months ago but as of late these results have been dominated by Sony.

@Spoony_Tech
This is the first week I've seen so many PS titles on the list- usually it's half and half or even a majority of 3DS titles, but it's been more of an even split lately with 3DS outselling PS4 by a small margin, followed by Vita and Wii U.

Vita seems to be doing ok in Japan for the past 6 months or so (really, ever since Freedom Wars released). Too bad we're not seeing any fruit for that success by way of new games here in the west.

When are they going to confirm western release for Bravely?! Mrgrgr.

I believe that XBX will flop. I certainly hope it doesn't, but it seems like such a niche game. On a related topic; my Mario Kart 8 march to a million watch is slowly chugging along. Also, not trying to diss any console but the XB1 should have skipped Japan.

@shigulicious
I think it's fair to assume XBX will at least do as well as its predecessor. Which was basically a million copies- that's a worst case scenario. Just look at Bayonetta 2- that game is now at what, 600k? And I imagine it will keep climbing slowly over the next 2 yrs. And it was pretty niche. I think there's a larger demand for RPG's- good ones mind you, than most people realize.

So no, I dont think it will flop. My honest prediction is that it will break a million sold in the first 6 months after western release. After all, that's where the bulk of sales came from last time. I think it has the potential to do closer to 1.5 million and creep towards 2 over the last 2 years, but that's no guarantee. Kind of depends how well the word gets out and how kindly reviewers take to it, and how well it does in Japan. Don't forget this game has consistently ranked on Famitsu's Readers Most Wanted List, and had the most positively rated video ever on that social media outlet just a week or two ago. It has potential, but even if it doesn't do too well in Japan, the last game hit just shy of 1 million and it didn't do too well in Japan, so it's not the be-all end-all of the game's success.

@Quorthon - I think it will outsell the original. The question being, is anyone waiting for XCX to buy their Wii U? My guess is most of the western audience that will buy the game already has a Wii U so I dont expect it to send hardware sales soaring, but Japan is a unique market. If sales soar week 1 then you could see a very strong month for Wii U between now and Splatoon. If it sells 70K the first week and moves 12K Wii U's then week 2 will be back to hovering around 6.5K. If the game reaches MH4 3DS type numbers (comparable to customer base) then who knows. That hype alone would help push the numbers in the West.

Sadly I assume the lesser sales scenerio is more likely and our chances of getting more RPG's from Nintendo will continue to decline.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3D sold roughly 57,000 copies its first week. It will be interesting to see how X compares.

@JaxonH XBC being a gamestop exclusive didn't help with sales either. I suspect XBX will do well enough.

I really doubt XCX will sell all that well, it's on Wii U, which is basically a death sentence for any game without Mario in it. Shame for those of us who do like a variety of games, including those with the famous plumber in them.

@Tazcat2011
True enough. Aren't ya glad Nintendo still releases great games for their systems even when the statistics are against them being successful though? I know I am. Some of the greatest games I've ever played sold less than a million copies on a Nintendo console.

It's Golden Week in Japan so everything is going to get a huge increase in next week's chart by default.

In my opinion Nintendo needs to give Wii U a desperately needed price reduction the console is nearly three years old and still 299.00 honestly it's Nintendos fault at this point , Even a reduction of 50.00 would help Wii U tremendously it is a shame Nintendo is killing the Wii U it's an AWESOME CONCEPT IN THE WRONG HANDS SONY SHOULD HAVE RELEASED THE Wii U ,LOL,.. Nintendo releasing a statement that their working on their next console was stupidity as well further hurting their current system . We have a PS4 and a Wii U in our house and the Wii U gets triple the use over our PS4 look at what happened for the 3DS when it got a couple good games and a price reduction now 50 million plus sales later , Come on Nintendo help your desperately in need of help system out it really is a success waiting to happen still yet it's a great system .

@Quorthon

One more pro in XCX's favor is that sales of XBC won't be hamstrung by the limited run that it's predecessor had in the Americas, so it should have longer legs. I know it's not saying much, but we have to cling on to every crumb we got.

@JaxonH Indeed. I'm playing Okami again, a game that didn't sell on PS2 or wii which was a shame.

@Quorthon
you forget that shulk was in smash, thus raising awareness and interest in Xenoblade.

though that was the case for XC 3D, that game also had the New 3DS barrier. Right now, WiiU has enough of a gamer crowd sticking by it and smash is still fresh that I think people will get it regardless of whether they really want to or not.

Wii didn't have much competition, but it was also fairly unknown (I never heard of it until smash), and I'm guessing it was released when the more hardcore gamers had long since abandoned the waggle heavy wii.

@JaxonH it will be way diffrent next week

@Will-75 when it comes to japan your more right than you know. they never got the price cut that the rest of the world got nearly two years ago.

@Peach64 this is very true but ninty does have 4 heavy hitters coming out during golden week.

@Spoony_Tech - If it makes you feel any better, PaD:Z came out on 3DS in Japan about 16 months ago, Dec 2013, they are only getting the Mario skin this week.

FYI - Z has sold over 1.5mil, (you commented on it enough, you probably know) 800k at launch, so I'm guessing 1mil next week for the Mario skin.

@Tazcat2011 @JaxonH - Will release date matter? If it comes out this Nov I can imagine it doing well at launch and over the holidays b/c there isn't really anything else like this on Wii U and everybody needs gifts. If it comes out next March (not a prediction, a possibility), and Zelda U is in February (again, just a guess) could that be a problem?

@rjejr
Absolutely it will factor in. It's not going to solely determine its' fate, but it will definitely factor in- mostly in North America, where it has the largest audience.

@rjejr @JaxonH I'm optimistic for this year. They need something to fill the Zelda void, I guess E3 will tell us either way. <Fingers Crossed>

Japan is slowly becoming a non factor when it comes to gaming

They dont care about anything :/

@Faruko
I'm starting to feel that way about the majority of gamers in general though tbh. I know Nintendo platforms don't get nearly as many games as the others, and I know they're not a technical powerhouse either, and I understand Nintendo is behind the curve in many respects. I get that. But there are some fine games on Nintendo platforms, some FINE games, yet so many just blindly ignore them.

Even when I don't own a certain console (like before I bought my Xbox One) I was at least curious to see what it had to offer and what I was missing out on by not owning one. I followed releases, watched reviews, and stayed fairly current on the library the system had on offer. But most gamers (at least most of the ones I see on the internet and talk to in real life) don't follow Nintendo, they don't watch reviews and stay up-to-date on the great games that are on offer. They just don't care. Not only that, they'll sit around and ridicule Nintendo and mock them. What kind of gamer just blindly dismisses an entire platform (multiple platforms even) without even looking into what they might be missing?

I research everything. As a gamer, that's what I do. I seek out the funnest games wherever they might be. And while Wii U being the best platform is debatable for many, it's certainly worth taking a peek at the very least. But no one does. Game after game after game comes out- they just ignore, ignore, ignore.

And it's not that this is anything new- this has been going on for a long time (even on the most popular console that everyone owned- the PS2, there are mountains of great games that sold less than 1 million copies with over 155 million owning the platform). It's just gotten so much worse over the last generation.

@JaxonH I dont know if you didnt understand my comment, but i mean that gaming in general feels like dead weight in Japan... The PS4 got a decent week and fell flat, sure its doing better than the WiiU but the numbers are still terrible

Only the 3DS seems alive and that one is already hitting (if it didnt already) saturation point.

It really seems Smartphones are rekting everything

@Faruko
I did, but I was elaborating on how that seems to be a wider trend in gaming. You gave examples on how good games are falling flat in Japan, I gave examples of how good games are falling flat everywhere.

And as for hardware, Japan has been ignoring good hardware for a long time, on all fronts. In the west it's only Nintendo hardware that seems to get ignored though.

@JaxonH Oooh i did not get that

you are right, but i think the "media center" that are consoles seems to fit much more on the west than the east

@Faruko

Looking at the gaming landscape these days in general can be depressing but I'd agree it's particularly depressing looking at Japan. So many legendary companies and legendary franchises just falling by the wayside.

@Tazcat2011 - I'm optimistic for this year as well, Monolith, though owned by Ntinedo, seems to operate mostly independently. But optimism doesn't always get it done.

E3 should give us a date though. Well more likely "Holiday 2015" or "by the holidays" but ta least let us know for sure its 2015. If Zedla isn't even going to be there they have to give us something. Though I'm guessing a whole lot of StarFox and Mario Maker.

@Faruko
gotta take into account the fact that digital copies aren't taken into account.

dunno how popular digital is in japan, and wouldn't mind an article on the general state of digital gaming there, or even in western regions as well, but seeing how everything is much more compact there, people might like the convenience of digital gaming freeing up space.

this data could be entirely misleading! I mean, wiiU and 3DS owners probably opt for physical copies due to memory limitations of the consoles and don't care to put in effort to get more space. wiiU has 8-16BG standard, upgrading space costs a hard drive and effort. 3DS comes standard with a tiny SD card, 2-4 GB. again, you can buy a bigger card, but that once again takes effort.

so as far as nintendo is concerned, the majority will go for physical copies.

as for Playstation and xbox, they come standard with a decent sized harddrive, which allows you to download digital, along with store sales for some day 1 purchases, there is a lot more incentive to go digital on these consoles. vita is basically all digital.

it's hard to sayhow things are really going in japan without any digital sales info

@JaxonH
why should people keep up with all games on all consoles? if you can afford to buy another console for that 1 game, okay, but some people can budget for only 1 console and games.

There's also a storm of games being released, with new games weekly for any given console. perhaps not quality AAA games, but games that might be worth a shot.

And if there are plenty of games one enjoys on one's currently owned console, why should you care about what's on another console? it's not like one is obligated to play every good game. sure, you might like that one game on another console you don't have, but don't you like the games on the console you do have?

I mean, unless you've played out all your games.. but I don't know, unless you have a very narrow scope of games you like, you should be pretty preoccupied with whatever console you currently have.

I mean, people complain that the wiiU has a sparse library, but I still have a huge backlog of games to finish, let alone play! imagine those with consoles that supposedly have games!

@khaosklub Keeping track of all the games helps you make an informed decision of what console to buy and when. Granted, I'm in a similar boat to @JaxonH as I eventually get all systems. However I currently don't own a one or a 4 so I'm watching their releases to find out when to jump in. Plus as a gamer I want to learn about more games...not the company I've tossed my allegiance with. I used to love reading about NEO Geo games as a kid...never bought one though... you can keep up with systems that you don't own. Keeps you open to new gems to play.

@Faruko

Sony is pretty clearly retaking Japan and, worldwide, moving back into the top position they held with the PS1 and PS2. The issue in Japan is on consoles. Japan is a very crowded country and a lot of people spend a lot of time on public transportation--this has moved mobile games into a much stronger position, and after that, portable game systems like the Vita or the half-dozen versions of the 3DS.

The 3DS, however, has pretty clearly reached a saturation point there as high sales of Bravely Second didn't seem to impact hardware sales at all, and Nintendo pretty clearly designed the New 3DS to just be sold to pre-existing 3DS owners, notable by the lack of a charging cable. In any other capacity, not including a charging cable would be downright shoddy product design, but Nintendo knows they aren't appealing to new audiences or new customers, so they work to maximize their profits by reselling largely the same hardware to the same people.

One of my friends fell for it plenty of times, and has three 3DS systems at least. The 3DS has 50 million in sales--but it seems a ridiculous number of those sales are to people who own more than one 3DS.

@Quorthon No they arent ? PS2 was selling an average of 70k of units in their first 130 weeks, thats 2 and a half years straight... thats 9 million consoles

the PS4 ? 1.5m in 1 year and 2 months (roughly half), thats about 25k units iaverage in about 60 or so weeks.

How is that retaking Japan ? And the Vita is a nonfactor, its dead, seling LESS than a handheld that has 6 times its player base.

@Gerbwmu

I don't think XCX will sell consoles, and the reason I say this is because the games that should have moved hardware really failed to do so--Mario Kart 8 and Smash Bros. If--and here goes another big "if"--if Nintendo is smart, they'll do a bundle with XCX and the Wii U to help move units, as they should have done with Smash Bros and Bayonetta 2.

But whatever sales increase the system sees will be marginal or statistically negligible.

We need to remember that the original game purportedly sold better in the US, and there was a great deal of hype around it at the time. A lot of fanboys tried to claim that Operation Rainfall succeeded in bringing it over, but it's far more likely that Nintendo was already planning on bringing it over before Op:Rainfall went into effect as the game literally came out only a couple months later, and Reggie had previously noted that signatures on a petition do not equal sales, which indicates that Nintendo likely never pays attention to anything like "fan demand."

But there was hype--quite a bit of it around XC at the time, even though NoA seemed to go out of their way to kill the game by limiting it to only GameStop or their online shop. It garnered hugely positive reviews, sold briskly, and quickly became an issue like Amiibos where supply vanished and price gouging occurred.

Whether or not XCX outsells the previous game, I can't really say. I would not be surprised in the least bit if it didn't particularly noting that literally every Wii U game (that is a sequel) has failed to outsell it's predecessors. It does have that push from a "core audience" that may well be the same core audience that bought the game the first time (I picked it up on launch day and got the art book), so that's a mitigating factor.

My bigger concern is that, regardless of if it outsells the previous game or not, I don't think it will be profitable, and given the amount of seemingly over-done hype and news Nintendo is trying to spread for the game, I'm getting the impression that they are also concerned that it won't be profitable and are doing their damndest to make sure people know it exists. The bloody game is likely to be at E3 yet again this year, and that'd be three E3's in a row for that game. Most games only show up at one.

It hadn't crossed my mind before, but Nintendo is terrible and notoriously lazy in promoting and supporting their games, particularly anything non carrying the Mario-Zelda-Pokemon labels, but I can't help but wonder now if the extensive shilling of XCX may be out of a worry that it won't make back the money spent on it.

By the way, XCX is sold out in Japan, i dont know what does that exactly mean but it is

@Faruko

If the Vita is dead, then logically, so is the Wii U--as the Wii U is evidently selling worse than the Vita worldwide--and especially in Japan. Sony is retaking Japan because games on Playstation systems dominate weekly sales charts. Worldwide, it's been repeatedly noted that the PS4's sales are about the fastest in gaming's history. The system has, essentially, already outsold the GameCube, while the Wii U has not yet outsold the Dreamcast.

@Quorthon Yes, the WiiU is dead, and we were talking about Japan not worldwide, where yes Sony is making a good job (The Vita is still dead worldwide, Vita 10m vs 55-60m 3DS).

By the way, the WiiU has already passed the DC, but thats irrelevant

I was talking about Japan, Japan is dying when it comes to gaming, they have 0 interest (at least for now) in all these new consoles... or maybe they are indeed making the shift to Smartphone gaming

Puzzle & Dragons will easily be top seller next week, those smartphone games on handhelds are extremely popular. I wish it would be XCX but really the only chance that game has is if there's Shulk DLC.

@khaosklub
But without looking into what other consoles have, how do you know the best one to buy (for you personally) in the first place? And most anyone can afford a second console if they want one bad enough. People say they can't afford it because they don't want to afford it. But if a person decides they are interested in a console, and wants one, they'll get it. Even if it takes a year to save (most people it just take the spare change of a single paycheck or two), or requires some overtime, or as a Christmas gift, they'll find a way to make it happen.

It's precisely about not having narrow taste. Every console has it's strengths ad weaknesses- certain genres that are plentiful and others that are lacking. It's not about "not having enough games to play on one console". I could live off my 3DS alone, or my Wii U alone, if I had to. But it's about playing the best the industry has to offer- and the best games are spread out amongst all the platforms. Sure, you could get by on one console- anyone could, but if you're a gamer, you like fun games. And people who like fun games want to play the funnest games. And to do that, you have to educate yourself about which ones to buy and for which platforms.

I'm not knocking your decision to play one console. If that's what suits your fancy then by all means. I'm just saying that someone who truly loves playing great games, as a hobby, is at least- at the very least- going to take a gander at what else is out there.

@Faruko

I guess you're not aware that the Vita has more games coming to it this year than either the Wii U or the 3DS. Also, the 3DS only just eeked past 50 million, so to magically raise the number instantly to 55-60 million at this point is pure fiction if not an outright lie. In reality, it appears to be selling below the GBA line. Granted, 50 million is still really good, but it's a far cry from every Nintendo portable that came before.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2015/04/17/2015-video-game-release-schedule.aspx

Vita: 125 games
3DS: 45
Wii U: 74
PS4 (for reference): 272

I guess you have something new to explain. If the 3DS is so great, why does it have fewer games coming out for it this year than literally every other platform? If the Vita is dead, why does it have more games coming to it than both the 3DS and Wii U? Hell, more than the 3DS and Wii U combined. There's clearly a big problem here, and the third parties haven't just largely abandoned Wii U, but also the 3DS. This is very, very odd.

And since you were just "talking about Japan," somewhat unclearly, the Vita is quite notably outselling the Wii U over there.

Also, by Nintendo's own count, as of the end of 2014, the Wii U had sold only 9.2 million units. In order to topple the Dreamcast by now, it would have had to sell at least 200,000 units per month since then, and while that is a pretty small number for consoles, Nintendo helped take consumer dollars away from the Wii U in that time by releasing yet another 3DS. The Wii U is also hovering below 10,000 per week in Japan, and not faring much better elsewhere.

The Dreamcast sold 10.6 million in about half~three-quarters the time the Wii U has sold around 9.2 million. So no, it's pretty safe to say that it still has not outsold the DC, sad as that may be.

It's pretty surprising that the Dreamcast was really only actively on shelves, worldwide, for less than 2 years, from September 1999 to March 2001. That's what, about 18 months? It had a little less than a year head start in Japan, but the majority of it's sales are--like most other latter-day consoles--likely to have been outside of Japan. Looks like Sega only sold around a million Dreamcasts in the 10 months prior to the worldwide launch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast

So anyway, if the Vita is "dead," then so too is the Wii U, and if it is dead, then why does it have a larger library for 2015 than the 3DS? Interesting, no?

@shigulicious

I'm curious what you base that on.

@Quorthon The vita is dead get over it, a huge part of those games are indie games which A) not exclusives B) they dont sell consoles, nobody buys a console for X indie game.

In that regard, indie developers DO care about the Vita because its easily ported

The vita and the WiiU are pretty much at the same point, and the Vita had a 10 month lead, its a handheld and its selling about the same as the WiiU (slightly better) ? and you dont think its dead?

Oh and for the record, the vita has 0 games that has more than 1 million units sold in Japan, zero, nada. In fact, and i would bet that the vita has only less games with more than 1 million units sold than the fingers on 1 of my hands.

By the way, the 3DS sold 50m on December 31, im pretty sure almost 5 months in, it has sold at least a few millions

I really would be surprise if XBX could sell more copies on the Wii U than it's predecessor did on the Wii. It only has a fraction of the Wii user base.

I expect sales about the same as Hyrule Warriors.

Saturation is pointing to a whole lot less sales for the 3ds looking forward.

Xbox one must surely be crowned the worst selling console in the history of Japanese gaming.