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The festive period certainly brought cheer for Nintendo in its homeland, as the New 3DS and Wii U enjoyed impressive sales while their key releases led the software charts. The latest Media Create Japanese charts show some understandable drops as January bites, yet the results are still positive for the big N.

Kicking off with software it's a case of 'as you were', with Monster Hunter X (Cross) leading once again, while Splatoon and Super Mario Maker continue to perform relatively well for Wii U. Yo-Kai Watch Busters has been bumped out of the top five by Minecraft on Vita, though, showing that the sandbox title's appeal is truly global. In general the top 20 has plenty of Nintendo titles, however - the results are below with lifetime sales in brackets.

  1. [3DS] Monster Hunter X (Capcom, 11/27/15) – 65,227 (2,587,086)
  2. [3DS] Monster Strike (Mixi, 12/17/15) – 38,795 (738,231)
  3. [Wii U] Splatoon (Nintendo, 05/28/15) – 28,945 (1,182,934)
  4. [Wii U] Super Mario Maker (Nintendo, 09/10/15) – 25,854 (752,739)
  5. [PSV] Minecraft: PlayStation Vita Edition (SCE, 03/19/15) – 23,161 (607,878)
  6. [3DS] Yo-Kai Watch Busters: Red Cat Team / White Dog Squad (Level-5, 07/11/15) – 22,681 (2,147,108)
  7. [PSV] Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme VS Force (Bandai Namco, 12/24/15) – 13,643 (121,406)
  8. [3DS] Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer (Nintendo, 07/30/15) – 11,147 (1,312,374)
  9. [PS4] Fallout 4 (Bethesda Softworks, 12/17/15) – 10,457 (188,877)
  10. [3DS] Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam (Nintendo, 12/03/15) – 9,497 (207,812)
  11. [3DS] Rhythm Heaven: The Best+ (Nintendo, 06/11/15) – 8,742 (629,524)
  12. [PS4] Call of Duty: Black Ops III (SCE, 11/06/15) – 7,819 (274,277)
  13. [PS4] Star Wars Battlefront (EA, 11/19/15) – 6,036 (198,511)
  14. [PS4] Rainbow Six Siege (Ubisoft, 12/10/15) – 5,912 (51,676)
  15. [PS4] Grand Theft Auto V (4,990 yen Version) (Take-Two Interactive, 10/08/15) – 5,654 (54,300)
  16. [3DS] Disney Magical World 2 (Bandai Namco, 10/05/15) – 5,361 (257,705)
  17. [PS4] Minecraft: PlayStation 4 Edition (SCE, 12/03/15) – 5,350 (38,251)
  18. [3DS] Animal Crossing: New Life (11/08/12) – 5,186 (4,115,727)
  19. [3DS] New Super Mario Bros. 2 (Nintendo, 07/28/12) – 5,002 (2,426,042)
  20. [3DS] Downtown no Kagi no Tsukai ya Arahen de!! Zettai ni Tsukamatte ha Ikenai Gasu Kuropikari Land (Alchemist, 12/17/15) – 4,860 (27,280)

In terms of hardware sales there are declines across the board, with systems typically shedding 40% or more in sales. Despite a hefty drop the New 3DS LL (XL) remains at number one, a lead that's boosted further if the rest of the portable's family is take into account. The Wii U remains in fourth place with a large drop of its own, but its sales of 24,722 are still far healthier than some of the lows in 2015. You can see the results below with last week's sales in brackets.

  1. New 3DS LL – 37,227 (73,778)
  2. PlayStation 4 – 36,559 (65,427)
  3. PlayStation Vita – 31,338 (63,811)
  4. Wii U – 24,722 (53,547)
  5. New 3DS – 11,610 (21,501)
  6. 3DS – 9,698 (21,621)
  7. PlayStation 3 – 2,784 (4,221)
  8. 3DS LL – 1,944 (3,205)
  9. Xbox One – 293 (765)

It'll be interested to see whether Wii U can hold sales numbers at 20,000+ on a consistent basis, as that would at least represent a notable improvement over large spells last year; the 3DS, as always, provides Nintendo with reassuring sales.

[source gematsu.com]