Mario and friends look for a positive spin on the results

It's Wednesday, which means we can start eyeing the weekend, and also that the Japanese chart results are available. Considering the results, some at Nintendo may be doing the former and getting in some strong drinks.

The big release last week, from Nintendo's perspective, was Mario Party: Star Rush, on 3DS; unfortunately it hasn't prompted a rush to stores. Though the headline of joining the charts in 2nd place is good, the number of sales - 26,473 - is disappointing. For comparison's sake Mario Party: Island Tour on 3DS launched with 132,688 sales in March 2014, while the Wii U's Mario Party 10 managed just over 50,000 sales in March 2015. Whether this Star Rush outcome is the result of declining overall interest in the series, issues as the second entry on 3DS, or a mixture of factors, it can be argued that the new arrival has under-performed. Paper Mario: Color Splash continues to struggle, shifting just 7,784 units in its second week.

You can check out the top 20 (with lifetime sales in parenthesis) below.

  1. [PS4] Battlefield 1 (EA, 10/21/16) – 113,081 (New)
  2. [3DS] Mario Party: Star Rush (Nintendo, 10/20/16) – 26,473 (New)
  3. [3DS] Monster Hunter Stories (Capcom, 10/08/16) – 25,550 (233,286)
  4. [PSV] Macross Delta Scramble (Bandai Namco, 10/20/16) – 24,607 (New)
  5. [PSV] Reco Love: Blue Ocean / Gold Beach (Kadokawa Games, 10/20/16) – 16,171 (New)
  6. [PS4] NBA 2K17 (2K Games, 10/21/16) – 9,777 (New)
  7. [Wii U] Paper Mario: Color Splash (Nintendo, 10/13/16) – 7,784 (28,678)
  8. [3DS] Yo-kai Watch 3: Sushi / Tempura (Level-5, 07/16/16) – 7,403 (1,291,841)
  9. [PSV] Idol Death Game TV (D3 Publisher, 10/20/16) – 5,822 (New)
  10. [PS4] Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration (Square Enix, 10/13/16) – 5,680 (26,832)
  11. [Wii U] Minecraft: Wii U Edition (Mojang, 06/23/16) – 5,536 (156,637)
  12. [PSV] Minecraft: PlayStation Vita Edition (SIE, 03/19/15) – 4,700 (901,333)
  13. [PS4] Persona 5 (Atlus, 09/15/16) – 4,673 (358,774)
  14. [3DS] Puzzle & Dragons X: Kami no Shou / Ryuu no Shou (GungHo Online Entertainment, 07/28/16) – 3,861 (199,500)
  15. [PSV] Suran Digit (Idea Factory, 10/20/16) – 3,672 (New)
  16. [PS4] FIFA 17 (EA, 09/29/16) – 3,499 (77,623)
  17. [PS4] Grand Theft Auto V (Low Price Version) (10/08/15) – 3,484 (180,880)
  18. [3DS] Kirby: Planet Robobot (Nintendo, 04/29/16) – 3,324 (456,904)
  19. [PSV] Divine Prison Tower: Mary Skelter (Compile Heart, 10/13/16) – 3,096 (21,454)
  20. [Wii U] Splatoon (Nintendo, 05/28/15) – 2,514 (1,484,797)

Moving on to hardware, for some reason the PlayStation VR isn't even listed this week, but beyond that it was a quiet week with small drops for most systems. New 3DS LL (XL) remains in second, while the 2DS is doing reasonably well in 4th place. The Wii U is beating the PS3 (albeit with less than 2,000 sales), so if that's not worth having a Mario Party over then we don't know what is.

  1. PlayStation 4 – 27,069 (30,154)
  2. New 3DS LL – 14,092 (15,905)
  3. PlayStation Vita – 8,853 (8,772)
  4. 2DS – 7,404 (8,203)
  5. New 3DS – 2,700 (2,983)
  6. Wii U – 1,919 (2,430)
  7. PlayStation 3 – 763 (814)
  8. Xbox One – 752 (323)
  9. 3DS – 370 (346)
  10. 3DS LL – 77 (71)

We rather liked Mario Party: Star Rush in our review, but the game seems to have struggled to convince many people to part with their cash. Nintendo will no doubt keep the bubbly on ice for the release of Pokémon Sun and Moon in November.

[source gematsu.com]