Nintendo Switch and Zelda: Breath of the Wild Lead Media Create Sales in Japan

Cool! What's particularly interesting here is that DQ Heroes I • 2 wasn't the hot seller, and BotW beat it out by miles. Even the Wii U version sold more! I guess the Japanese knew well ahead of time about the performance issues on the NS version of DQ Heroes, etc...

But yeah, massive sellouts in Japan, definitely to be expected. But watch out- with region free, some of them may start trying to import from gaijins to account for those who didn't get one in Japan right at launch, and may not want to wait until more shipments... 😈

What was not to be expected... Was the Japanese desire to pretend to jerk... I mean milk imaginary cows, and other objects of interest, while looking deeply into their rival's eyes, and...

...Wait... This is Japan, that's just a perfectly normal activity there compared to a lot of other things they have. Carry on!

Great!

@cfgk24 Lol, you were like 30 seconds too late. It would be really funny if a whole bunch of people did that with one word posts for the first 5 posts or something. 😆

"Cool!"
"Great!"
"Awesome!"
"Fantastic!"
"I like pie."

Good sales. Next week and the following months will be more interesting though.

Wow, 1-2 Switch at third spot. That's pretty cool

Zelda will be an evergreen title and most like shift anywhere from 7 to 10million by the end of it's life. Heck, Nintendo could promote Zelda on the Switch for the next 3 years and still get sales.

This week in "what sold better than the Xbox One" :
The freaking WiiU.

Great number there but the proof will be if the momentum stays strong.

Good figures for Switch, but wonder why the people who didn't buy Zelda actually bothered getting a Switch.

I think Nintendo should have avoided launching the same week as Horizon; it's been messing with quite a few headlines.

What are the opening sales of Breath of the Wild in Japan compared to Twilight Princess? Kinda curious since both games had similar release situations.

Who were the 565 people buying Wii U? Did they not get the memo? Or just collectors?

@Mogster Some people bought it on the eshop, others had to wait because of stocks... and the lineup is also different in japan. Some may have bought it for Dragon Quest !

@Motasim1000 It's not great news yet because NS is still mostly just a Zelda machine (outside Japan), kind of like N64 was mostly just a Mario 64 machine at launch, and needs to keep up momentum until other big Nintendo titles are released. Which should work out for the rest of March and April, but after that is anyone's guess at this point, up until the holidays bring about Super Mario Oddysey and a second boom of Zelda sales for the DLC and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, etc.

(Jaw Drop)
Zelda Breath of the Wild sales is a MONSTER !
Keep going, Nintendo !

To say that Zelda is not that popular in the East, this is very good news!
Hopefully it will keep going and not fizzle out.

Aww poor old Xbone

Its a great start for switch but from what i see it may be hard for switch to hold momentum. Zelda is the main seller right now but later down the road mk8 comes out late april but there are no release dates for anymore triple A games. Mk8 is just a Wii U game and i dont see a lot of 3rd party besides indies to fill the void. Wii U had this problem also. You would have to wait like 3 months for the next 1st party title with not much to play inbetween. Switch is giving me the same feeling.

looks to me like NSW = not safe for work.

Japan sales are going to explode once Splatoon 2 hits in the summer.

its early days and I never had the Wii U so I cant compare but I am worried about how many titles are being released. Nintendo really needs to build up a catalogue fairly rapidly otherwise its going to flop.

@Baker1000 I tempted to pick one up as a spare in case my Wii U dies.

When does Switch overtake XBox One in lifetime sales in Japan?

I think

A 2:3 attach rate for Zelda seems very low. Each to their own, I suppose.

I think a more fair comparison would be BOTW combined sales vs. TP for wii and GameCube.

Figured Zelda would be number one. Horizon Zero Dawn is awesome too, easily a contender for GOTY.

@JamesR It's still early on, so the attach rate will drop drastically over time, but 2:3 is far better than any other Zelda title has managed. I think the ultimate highest, when all was said and done, was about a 1:10 attach rate for Link's Awakening DX on the GBC...

Ouch to Nobunaga's Ambition failing to chart in the top 20 (it also had the highest retail price at more than 10,000 yen).

Incidentally, the (announced for Switch) Romance of the Three Kingdoms game has been classified for an Australian retail release, which is a pleasant surprise.

A Zelda game leading charts in a massive way in Japan in and of itself is pretty amazing. Zelda's not always a great seller in Japan....

The hardware sales so far are pretty impressive. We'll see if it drops off, but pretty amazing so far!

Excellent news!

The Switch is the portable Japan has always dreamt of. Nintendo will rule Japan once more, it seems.

Totally not surprised to see 1-2-Switch do very well there. Japan loves multiplayer minigame compilations as I remember Wii Party U sold a lot here but little elsewhere.

While others have rightfully noted that the coming weeks will really tell the tale, I think its a good start and that should be celebrated nonetheless.

@PlywoodStick "Which should work out for the rest of March and April"

I checked the other day and the only game I could find for May at all, not a date, just "May", was RiME, also available on PS4, X1 and PC. Which now just says "Spring 2017", but Ultra SF2 is May 26th, so there's that. Having MK8D April 28th is almost May, guess that's Nintneod's plan to support Switch thru E3 alongside ARMS, but May sure looks empty. All the MK games do well though. I still think E3 will bring it, and Splatoon 2 will sell all they can make in Japan, but summer could mean June, July, August or September, a date would be nice. Maybe Nitneod is saving that release date news for Switch sales to drop off to prop them back up again? They can't wait on all news until E3, nowhere to go from 329k but down. Competition w/ PS4 could be interesting in a few weeks.

@dumedum All I see every time is NSFW. Why isn't it just NS anyway? NSW makes no sense. Can't be a 3 letter or space requirement b/c Wii U is 4 letters, 5 spots. I'm going to start calling it the "Nintendo Switch Whatever".

Congrats to Nintendo, guess 1 2 Switch and Bomberman weren't overpriced after all.

Zelda U sold 44k but Wii U only sold 500. That must have been every Wii U still available in Japan. I guess that does happen to PS3 on a fairly regular basis but it's still kind of crazy to sell so much software, of a GOTY candidate, but so few consoles.

Great start but only a fool would have expected less in Japan with their handheld love.

Like the more thoughtful of you said, however, it is the coming months that matter.
E3 and all that really matters.

What did the other 100,000 people buy to play with the console?

@neufel

Haha lol i saw that too the wiiU is dead and still sells? Putting xbox one below the grave. Microsoft needs another new console fast.

@Dezzy Well.... if we assume they aren't the same audience then about 80K of them bought 1-2 Switch and considering this is Japan, I'll take it the remaining 20K bought Dragon Quest?

@WinterSugoi

Who buys a console for either of those though?

@ReshiramZekrom Twilight Princess sold around 14K units in the same time period (on Wii) in Japan.

That means that BotW has sold well over 10 times it's sales at launch in Japan.

@Dezzy JP loves them some DQ but 1-2 Switch? Yeah I'm stomped on that one myself.

Who the heck bought a Wii U the week the Switch was released?!

They bought 1 2 Switch over Bomberman and Dragon Quest?

@WinterSugoi
Yeah but they're available on PS4 so you wouldn't really buy a new console for them!

It's going to very interesting to see the sales curve of the Switch in Japan. The country loves handheld systems, I can see Switch easily outsell PS4 on a constant bases but will it outpace 3DS?

@PlywoodStick lol, I was thinking exactly the same thing!

@PlywoodStick plus.... Screw you for editing your post! Ha ha!

@neufel i think that's every week in japan heh.

I am very surprised by the BIG difference between switch sales and breath of the wild sales. What are they playing? A lot of promising things are on the way but right now that's the only real console seller.

@electrolite77
No.

But digital sales in Japan aren't very big.

I expected more sales for zelda what with the switch selling 330 thousand units but still a good result. Only zelda and horizon did OK, 1-2switch did fair and the rest of charts was pants.. The switch release didn't really effect ps4 and Vita and 3ds sales they r not much difference from last week,also wii u had a tiny jump.. Next few weeks should be interesting
Edit.. Interesting to see how zelda faired against Horizon globally, don't think there will be much in it, I think horizon will just sneak ahead

Its nice to see the new Zelda doing this good, even if its on Switch.

That it beats Horizon may also be because Horizon is a western product. If I had a ps4 I would also buy that title. That title looks also great!

@rjejr Good points. And I think you just came up with a new nickname... The Nintendo'S Whatever! Because, hey... It can be whatever you want it to be!

@cfgk24 I woke up literally minutes before the article got posted. (EST) I saw the opportunity and ran with it!

@JamesR Just did it....hahahah if not maybe in two or three weeks.

@electrolite77 No, only physical.

Outside of the expectedly good launch, it appears the Switch has revived the Bomberman franchise.

https://twitter.com/oscarlemaire/status/839492523542343681/photo/1

Not at all surprising for Japan. I suppose good news is good news though.

@Ernest_The_Crab pretty amazing how Japanese like to leave the real Zelda love to the West... There's something just not Japanese enough about it. But I imagine Nintendo dreaming about a 50 million Japanese crowd waiting to storm the Switch like an army from Armageddon for when Switch will see an exclusive huge Monster Hunter. They will bet their entire company on that.

@Baker1000 @LegendOfPokemon Why wouldn't they buy the Wii U. It's a good system, it supports 2 systems worth of back catalog games, and virtual console and e-shop titles. It's also about as cheap now as it is going to be (as a new device that is). It's not surprising people are grabbing up the last ones. Bear in mind these are likely the people that would never pay full price for a Switch (or would have for Wii U, or a Wii, etc). Being on the cutting edge doesn't matter to everyone.

@sillygostly Nobunaga's Ambition is way overpriced. I was planning to buy it, but it is just way too expensive for a port of an old title.

The doubters went from saying "the switch will flop" to "let's see if Nintendo can keep up the momentum." Well, I'm pretty sure Mario Kart, Sonic, and Arms coming out next month will surely help with that.

Anyways awesome news. It's good to see Bomberman doing so well too.

@PlywoodStick "It can be whatever you want it to be!"

Weill that's usually a little more positive than I tend to lean, but yeah, I was thinking it. Portable, home, tabletop, it's versatile. There's no play like it.

Nintnedo needs to turn that controller graphic into a Joycon.

@Tyranexx
Zelda is going to sell better. Known IP, reviewing better than any game ever (believe it just set the record for most perfect scores on metacritic) and launched with a new system that a lot of people were hyped for.

Sony had no choice with Horizon. If the release date had been bumped up it would've gone against Resident Evil VII and would've completely buried Sony's other first party exclusive for early this year, Gravity Rush 2. If it was delayed, it goes against Mass Effect: Andromeda, good luck going up against that with a new IP. At the end of the day, Sony released it at the best time it could, unless it was going to push the game back to May. Selfishly, I'm glad it was released now, been anticipating that game since E3 2015 and it's awesome. And can't wait to play Zelda later this year when I buy that, along with a Switch and Super Mario Odyssey (hopefully there's an SMO or Zelda bundle).

@Dezzy Since this kind of console highly appeals to Japanese folk, maybe some simply bought the console because they see the potential?( they do tend to get games at a faster pace than the west)

I mean you can also argue who'd buy a Switch for Zelda when the game is available for a console that's already been out and a number of them probably already have, too.