Nintendo Switch is Still Number One in the Japanese Charts

Wow, those figures are amazing, and Switch big hitters still selling in big numbers, some long after release, fantastic to see. BOTW will ultimately sell one million in Japan alone, that's pretty great for Zelda in that region I believe.

Off topic, but huzzah for Yakuza for taking the top spot. 0 and Kiwami are really great games to play

The Switch train continues to dominate.

When Nintendo revised their sales numbers, some of us questioned if it could surpass the Wii U in a single year. Now it's basically a given. The question now isn't if the Switch will surpass Wii U figures in the first year, but when it will surpass Wii U figures before it's first year. Exciting times. As evidenced by almost all major third party publishers, they now have to pay attention to Nintendo.

Nintendo is making Pacmans around Sony and Microsoft. Look at a pie chart.

Great numbers all around this week, but hey, that's December for you.

I'm very curious to see how Monster Hunter fares on PS4. These hardware numbers, even without the game bundled, are encouraging for Capcom.

I think it's pretty clear that, unless Nintendo fumbles big time, this is the sales trend that's going to continue for the next few years.

Not gonna lie, part of me hopes when monster hunter world releases it doesn't do too hot so that they will realize how silly it was to not make it for the switch as well.

Here's hoping Nintendo has an impressive line up kicking off in January to keep up this amazing momentum

@PuppyToucher Isnt that kinda selfish? I mean Sony fans never got a Monster Hunter game in years. And the PC gamers never got a official game ever.

Switch sold 10 million in less than 9 months!
Wii U sold 13.5 million in 4 years.

Let’s all pause for a minute and recall the time when it was a “great week” when the Wii U sold five figures worth of consoles. How times have changed.

Outselling PS4 2 to 1

Yikes.

Hoping for a bit of that to rub off on Europe.
Around here I get people saying it's annoying the VGAs 'Game of the Year' is a game no-one played.

I really hope we'll get Earth Defense Force on Switch one day.
Ordered the PS4 version, but I'd much rather have it on a portable.

1-2-Switch outsells Horizon Zero Dawn.

Battlefront II leaves the charts.

Crazy long legs for Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Splatoon and Zelda. Pokken is also still there.

164,908,that's a crazy number of consoles sold. The next 2 weeks will likely be even higher too. I don't think I've ever seen any console shift that amount outside of its launch month.

Damn, the switch could sell nearly a million units every six weeks in Japan alone at that rhythm. That's huge, and yet third party support is taking ages to finally show in full boom. Goes to show how these companies lack vision and couldn't see that mobile "home" gaming was the way of the future, especially in THAT territory

@Ardisan isn't it kinda selfish that sony paid capcom to not release mh world for the switch?

Noice!

@Ardisan eh it may be a little selfish but I didn't say I hope it bombs and doesn't sell a single copy... I just said I hope it doesn't do too hot, as in I hope it doesn't set the world ablaze with ridiculous amounts of sales. I don't think it's that wrong of a consumer to want games on their console of choice and that is made more likely if said game needs a sales boost. Also full disclosure I own a PS4 (and xb1, but that isn't the topic of convo I guess).

LOL at xbox one x.
Blah blah blah....
Xbox one x is Pure 100 % Jokes. 🤡
Worst machine ever from Microsoft.

@JamesR
"1-2-Switch outsells Horizon Zero Dawn"

All hail to the Demo Tech games 1-2-Switch !
Even AAA games means Nothing for some Japanese gamers.

Very impressive, the switch will likely end 2017 close to or above the 13.5 million mark which would have it outpace the PS4 in a little less than 10 months. The PS4 in turn took 10.5 months to reach that figure. I'm not aiming to pit one console against another, simply to be happy that the Switch is on pace to be a better selling console long-term if momentum can be maintained. This is good news for Nintendo fans and fans of video games in general!

Even a AAA Monster Hunter isn't enough to touch even half the Switch's sales.

I'm sure the game will do well. Probably a million in Japan and a couple million in the west. But considering even low budget 3DS entries were doing 4 million a piece, if a high budget, AAA, multiplatform, highly marketed entry is unable to surpass previous entries, that really speaks volumes.

It's a great game (played the demo, and am a huge fan of the series) but people want it on the go. People want it on Switch. And I would be shocked... no... I would be amazed if their next effort wasn't a 5th generation Switch exclusive, or at the very least dual release with 3DS (but 3DS would hold it back, and people will expect more in a post-MH:W world).

They kinda screwed themselves with this game. Now the bar has been raised, they can't go back to low budget releases. Which is good for us... good for me. It means instead of getting another MHXX on Switch, we'll get something more akin to MH World Portable.

@JaxonH Imagine how high those software/hardware numbers would be if MHW was a Switch exclusive.

Still not used to all this good news.

@Pod That's stupid especially with Breath of the Wild being such a great game, people really missing out if they are skipping out on switch IMO.

1 more week to 1M Odyssey and 1.5M Splatoon 2 sales in Japan.

If my wonky quick glance adding up is correct, that’s more than all the other consoles combined!

@OorWullie
Switch install base is still relatively small now, but by the time the next entry releases it'll be large enough to yield significant sales numbers.

I'm actually all for MH going multiplatform now. My main concern was casualizing the game, which ok, they did do to an extent but it's 90%... which is good enough for me.

What I'm not in favor of is skipping Switch. By all means bring MH to the other platforms, just make sure Switch is getting similar entries as well. Doesn't need to be the exact same game, but it does need to have the QoL changes and built with better graphics than previous entries. Do that, and I'll be fully satisfied.

so where's Monster Hunter on Switch then, Capcom?

I want Monster Hunter World so bad. But I don't have a PS4.

Loool last week the Wii U only sold 45 systems in the whole of Japan? Even for a failure of a console with it's successor out, that's incredible! I bet Switch has beat that in one store alone.

@JaxonH
What made me shocked and laughed was 1-2-Switch beat that AAA Horizon games.
Games don't really need AAA status to be famous.

@PuppyToucher It's more likely to come to Switch if it does well though. It doing badly would suck for everyone

@BensonUii
It might be slightly bad for Switch, but the main thing bad for Switch is not having a MH game at all. As long as they make entries for Switch, multiplat won't matter. Because people want it portably. They'll buy it on Switch regardless of what other platforms it comes to.

And they won't be flushing their portable market down the toilet. Now that Switch is dominating they'll be scrambling to get MH on Switch. MHXX is evidence of this fact.

Yay.

I'm sure Capcom must be hiding in a corner kicking themselves for not putting MH World on Switch. One can only imagine what would happen to Japanese Switch sales if that happened.

Nintendo is going to have to ship more hardware to Japan as Christmas approaches. The Switch is still very much supply constrained.

When the rumour of World started emerging, it was along side a rumour of Switch getting a more traditional MH game later.

@JamesR @Anti-Matter that's just the "complete edition" of Horizon. Basically the GOTY version with the dlc included. Not really a shocker, overall Horizon has sold a lot more though.

@PuppyToucher it will likely open higher than the 3ds release of xx. Not sure if it will have the longevity tho.

@PorllM I disagree, resident evil revelations was a 3ds exclusive until poor sales forced it to other consoles and now it's on pretty much every system.

Edit: as corrected in a comment below, I should not have said poor sales, but instead said not high enough sales to justify development cost.

Again, props to those 70 who bought a Wii U lol

I'm just waiting here for Bayonetta 1,2,3....

@BensonUii
Definitely not World. It was built for stronger hardware and it's already releasing. A super late port of a game that might not even run properly without significant work is not going to even remotely interest Capcom. They will certainly make a different entry for Switch. I've been saying that from day one.

And yes, that would be the best solution for all parties involved, fans included. Make multiplatform entries for PS4/X1/PC, make exclusive portable entries for Switch. And either drop 3DS altogether, or use the old engine for 3DS to make a Switch/3DS dual release similar to Dragon Quest XI, where there's a console graphics entry for Switch and a dialed down 3DS version on the side.

Everyone wins. Every platform gets to play, both console and portable is included, and fans like me can get the best of both worlds.

Same old same old games for the Switch. People just buying the same nintendo games they were buing months ago. Dint LA noire come out last week?... Lol!

Good for Yakuza. Can't wait for Yakuza 6 and the end of the story ark.

@PuppyToucher
Wasn't really poor sales though. It sold over a million copies on 3DS. Porting is just what companies do. Regardless of selling well, porting brings even more sales. It actually sold more on 3DS/Wii U than PS3/Vita.

@PuppyToucher fair point

@CptProtonX ha... I get it.

Close fought battle there between the Wii U and the world's most powerful console...

@JaxonH They can try to spin it as a success but in their own words they said they wanted more sales...

"Given the large development costs we had on the 3DS version, we would have liked to have even a little more sales than we did in the end. But that doesn't mean we saw it as a failure by any means."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-01-31-capcom-there-is-a-possibility-of-resident-evil-series-reboot

Edit: my initial point was that I hope monster hunter worlds doesn't sell too well so that we can get a switch port... this quote from capcom follows the same logic I used.

@PuppyToucher
It'll likely do 1 million in Japan (Same as Dragon Quest XI did on PS4) and 2-3 million in the west across all platforms. Certainly good, but it will have taken a massive AAA budget, massive marketing and 3 platforms to achieve the same success as low budget 3DS entries.

That said, we will never see World on Switch. It's just not gonna happen. It would take 1-2 years to bring over and even then would need considerable work to run, if it's even possible at all. World is a lost cause. But future entries, those will certainly be on Switch. MHXX, a port of a 6 month old expansion of a 2 year old game, which was already a spinoff and less well received than main entries, even that has surpassed 350,000 units just physically and in Japan alone on an install base of just 2 million players. Likely hit 500k with digital included.

So ya, they know Switch is where it's at. They know. The good thing about World, is now we get a nice, high budget entry with voice chat and solid graphics, while raising the bar for future Switch entries. So now, when when the next game comes to Switch, it'll look very similar to World as opposed to MHXX.

Only 117.000 copies of Xenoblade 2 ?? How ?!?!

@CorvoRevo
Only? That's more than both previous Xenoblade games did in Japan.

The amazing thing is that, last week, the almost 7 year old end of life, replaced by Switch 3DS is almost 1:1 selling with the mighty current-gen PS4 in japan, even at the same price point! While Switch decimates both. This week (Amazing that Playstation sales doubled on account of MHW, but that's for an LE/collectors item that doesn't even include a game, and still only brought Playstation to half of Switch, and 1/4 combined Nintendo hardware.) 3DS is selling half of PS4, which is still impressive for what's now a legacy system. Still trounced by Switch which is amazingly limited by supply rather than demand still.

Sony's slogan has been "Playstation is the best place to play."
As far as Japan goes the new slogan should be "Playstation: At least it's a better place to play than XBox, I guess." Nintendo has a virtual monopoly there, while Sony is the new Sega for Japan.

Also, 45 people in Japan who bought a WiiU, I salute you!

@JaxonH Seriously ?!?? Oh my, i dont know Xenoblade goes that bad in Japan ...

Yeah Yakuza freakin’ ROCKS! And yes EDF, the entire series, needs to be on Switch. Great game!

I would be disappointed that Monster Hunter World only achieves 30 fps on PS4 - I would like to see a Monster Hunter on Switch that uses the Monster Hunter Stories art style but ran at 60 fps. .
My suspicions are that Capcom is translating MHXX for the Switch as this would be the easiest route to take - however - if they have insisted on updating the aesthetics from 3ds days - they may surprise us. . .

@JaxonH I'm not a "serious" MH fan, just casual, but yeah I can't imagine them doing another "home console" MH with their core market of Japan being pretty much Nintendo Land as a sovereign nation. World was such a weird move. It seems entirely rooted in either sugar daddy money from Sony, or they firmly believed Switch would fail and got caught with their pants down when it took over their entire player base.

@Agramonte L.A. Noire was never going to sell in Japan (if it's even for sale there at all. 1940's America isn't exactly a popular theme in Japan....

@CorvoRevo
Bad? 100,000 in Japan is really good. Very few games reach 100k in Japan. Now, sure... some games are behemoths that top a million or more in Japan, but most games debut at 20-30k.

@NEStalgia
It's not even that they thought Switch would fail, it's that Switch didn't exist. Not even as a concept. The game began planning a year after Wii U released.

By the time Switch hit the market it was practically finished. And even if they were made aware of Switch halfway into development, they couldn't possibly know how it would perform, and even if they had incredible faith it would succeed, that still doesn't change the fact it takes years for an install base to reach respectable levels.

@CorvoRevo There are only 130,000 retail copies made in the first run.

@NEStalgia yeah, well nobody did really. Hope 2k do not take this the wrong way. I would buy a new one - lets say NY Noire - in a heart beat for the Switch.

@Anti-Matter X1X is selling pretty well. Of course it was never going to sell in Japan since Japan has never looked twice at XBox and likely has next to no marketing there (I imagine Microsoft marketing in Japan looks like WiiU marketing in the US....missing.)

X1X, as a piece of hardware, is exceptionally nice....can't fault their engineering team. A console with liquid cooling to keep it energy efficient and cool while overclocking a bunch of stuff? They built a quality machine for sure. The trouble is....what games does it have you can't get on Playstation? Sea of Theives? A collection of OG X-Box games? Cuphead? The ability to play Minecraft with Switch owners? Actually in Japan that's probably the most marketable feature....

@JaxonH Capcom, via MH, would be a VERY close confidant of Nintendo for Switch. It was they who stipulated the memory increase. They knew full well enough into development what the Switch was with ample time to accommodate it if they believed in its success. It was more powerful than WiiU, so they knew their target to hit based on their past WiiU work. Ultimately they made a decision that they didn't believe in Switch's success (as did Ishihara of TPC, so they're not alone in that.) and now that in one year Switch is the dominant console among their core audience, they'll have to backpedal like Lance Armstrong at a doping check. They traded their large, cheap to please audience for a small, expensive to please audience. I'm not sure if it's funny to watch or if I feel bad for them though.

@Agramonte Well, despite being a cool game something has always been unmarketable about L.A. Noire. It tanked the first time around, and on it's comeback tour it didn't really chart well on any platform yet again. PS4 sold the best of course (biggest install base) but Switch isn't far behind X1. So it's not so much that Switch owners don't buy L.A. Noire. It's that 2 generations of console owners really haven't bought L.A. Noire. I don't think we'll see N.Y. Noire. For any platform, ever. Which is really sad, I love the environment.

@dougphisig
I'm sure people will wake up and smell the coffee over the next couple years. The first movers are certainly there.

@NEStalgia
I think you're missing the part where the game started development a year into the Wii U lifespan. Ya they knew about Switch before it released, but that was still years into development already.

And consoles aren't successful overnight. Doesn't matter how well they thought Switch would do. Doesn't make it magically sell 50 million consoles on launch day. You need a sizeable install base first. And that takes a couple years, even at the rate Switch is selling.

They go where the gamers are and right now there's only 10 million Switch gamers vs 110 million PS4/X1 gamers. And since they're trying to target western gamers in particular, they made the right choice.

This works to our benefit, and Nintendo's. Get more western gamers into the series with a high budget release on PS4/X1, then follow up with a Switch exclusive a year or two later, once the install base is reached 30-40 million players, and watch it sell several million more than previous entries ever did.

Monster Hunter should smash 2, maybe 3m on the PS4. You all underestimate it, and the install base on the PS4 is huge. It could sell 10m globally, more than the Switch install base. A lot of people have been waiting for a high end Monster Hunter title...

Capcom won't be kicking themselves, but do have an obvious way forward with a portable version on switch for next Xmas...

Can't wait to see what hardware revision Nintendo has waiting for us...

k@NEStalgia Yeah - I wanted it to keep going, just a different city each time, maybe even another era like DC: Watergate - but you are right - game was a hard sell. It was over ages ago

NinoKuni2 got pushed back so opens up cash for LostSphere on the Switch in January. A hard sale here in the States, Oh well.

Monster Hunter is huge in Japan and if Nintendo doesn't get at least a portable version of World it will be in big trouble. Switch could end its lighting in Japanese charts sooner or later.

@Cathousemaster yep - its been fighting it out on top of Amazon JP best seller for some time now and we still month away

https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/bestsellers/videogames

Wait a minute, there's a Dead Rising 4 already? And here I am still playing through Dead Rising 2 & 3.

@NEStalgia
They traded their large, cheap to please audience for a small, expensive to please audience

You're right about that though. And I actually said as much earlier. Now that they've raised the bar, the bar will have to stay raised.

But, that's good for us fans. The series needed to progress forward. It was becoming stale, using the same basic template that had been used since the PS2 era. So I think it needed to happen. The risk was losing the core game in the process in effort to appeal to a new audience. Thankfully we've come out the other side relatively unscathed.

Wow why that huge spike in WiiU sales? 40 to 75 is quite a jump.

@Ensemen Got any sources for that information.

@bezerker99 I don't see why that's a huge problem, it's coming to basically everything but the Switch (and mobile).

@JaxonH They may have gone where the gamers were in 2013, but as it turns out they didn't go where the Monster Hunter players are in 2017.

PSXBox may be where western gamers are, but I'm not sure the PSXBox western gamer is going to mesh very well with Monster Hunter. Western gamers are in general uninterested in complicated systems, specific tactics, etc. Sure Souls players are, but that's niche as well. We'll see how sales turn out. Which will probably be a reflection of their marketing expenses.

" Now that they've raised the bar, the bar will have to stay raised."
You did see that this was Capcom, right?

I do agree it was stale though, the "zoned" maps were kind of off-putting even for a casual fan, at an absolute minimum, and some of the collection was clunky as anything.

@retro_player_22 MHW may be on every platform but Switch, but as it turns out, most people who buy MH are on Switch....

MH on everything but Switch would be like Battlefield as a Switch exclusive. It's a definite mismatch of the market you're reaching and where your actual market is.

@MsgBoardGamer Bethesda really didn't have a lot to lose since it was an untapped market for them and, like you said, their games haven't been blockbuster sellers on any platform recently...but it would indeed be a big waste of scarce funds if it flopped. I think from their perspective what they needed was to increase their reach and including Nintendo was a sure bet to do that. If they can't dominate the charts one one platform they can pick away at many platforms. Plus Nintendo approached them first (and we don't know if money changed hands.)

But Capcom, yeah, I mean @JaxonH has a great point about the dev timeline. But that's only half the story. They knew where their player base was and did what Capcom has done before, overextended to attempt tapping that big western market as they see the Japanese market shrinking. Add in a lack of faith in Nintendo and it led them to not plan to please their existing profitable consumer and simply assume that their consumer would be moving onto a different ecosystem and abandoning Nintendo. Maybe it wasn't a stupid calculation in a business where you HAVE to try to predict the future because all products are years out, but it was a big risk betting against the existing market, and it sure as heck did backfire in a big way. And Capcom happens to be a company with a bad history of frequently making the wrong prediction.

At this pace the 3DS’ first year sales of 17 million is getting into reach for the Switch. 160,000 switches sold in 1 week is totally nuts!

These numbers are bonkers.

@Agent721 3DS?

@Savlep99 It has sold 10MM by December 10th. 3.5MM in a month, even for X-mas, seems a little farfetched.

Still, it will surpass Wii U by March 2018. It is almost a given.

@retro_player_22 Monster Hunter World is coming to mobile devices? That's news to me. Also, all I have is a Switch so I'm screwed.

@redd214 I don't think this is true in Japan. VGChartz is tracking Horizon: Zero Dawn at 230k copies while 1-2-Switch (from above) is around 300k copies. Of course, both numbers are likely to be incomplete but we're in the same ballpark.

@JamesR fair enough, wasn't referring to just Japan but worldwide where it handily outsold it.

@maceng December 10th was the post, I believe it is based on data up until November, which excludes that first week of December sales. I think it might be a stretch but certainly doable. Can they sell an average of 875k a week worldwide, stretch yes, possible definitely especially with the South Korean market, we will have to see. I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

I'm glad to see Sega at the top of the Japanese weekly charts, and thanks to Yakuza 0, I'm even more glad to see the Yakuza series being a little more known in the west, then it has in the past year or so.

@Savlep99 I think that, overall, we could consider 550k-650k units sold per week. 875k IMHO is just too high (Japan usually accounts for 25-33% of worldwide sales).

I'm an engineer so I like to make educated guesses and not give in much to fan (myself included) wild expectations.

But yes, the more the merrier.

Evergreen titles will continue to sell but an enchanted port of Super Smash Bros Deluxe released now, would be a killing blow to the competition. Nintendo is holding back games, and after Xenoblade there's no new system seller

Switch once again outselling everything else combined. Feels like it's 2008 all over again.

@NEStalgia

3DS sold 17 million units in its first year and that could be doable, with some luck, for the Switch in its first year as well.

Forbes Magazine.

@maceng I'm also one to make educated guesses and am not necessarily buying into wild expectations. Since we are naming professions, I am an chartered accountant and work very closely with projections, forecasts and financials. I also must admit I have a vested interest in the Switch doing well as I am also an investor in Nintendo stock. Do I think it's a stretch? Yes. Do I believe Nintendo can surprise us once again this year? Yes. They seem to have a better handle on their supply issues, as seen in the weekly sales increases in Japan. Nintendo has stated they are ramping up supply even more for the month of December? Could those weekly sales in Japan reach 200k? I don't know, but if we are to believe that there is still clearly stock shortages in the market and Nintendo will again increase output, why can't we see another 40k jump like we saw this week. We already know that South Korea and Japan amounted to over 200k in sales this past week, I think it might be possible, but we will wait and see. If I were to bet on it happening I certainly wouldn't, then again with the odds stackes so high against it, we could be looking at 100-1 odds, in which case I might wager 10 dollars It might just be more realistic to see the Switch outpace that 13.5 million in 10 and a half months by a week or a few days. It's just a fun ride to follow at the moment!

Sony released a Monster Hunter PS4 and did not include the game? LAME.

Also those are some awesome numbers for Nintendo, no doubt.

And the Xbone and XboneX together almost hit 500! Almost. But hey, at least they are finally consistently beating Wii U and PS3. (sorry it never fails to amuse me)

@Savlep99 You got that right: it is a fun ride, specially if you are a Nintendo fan. I always read this report since I like to wrap my head around the fact that Nintendo, once again, could have the highest selling console for "this generation". I mean, it would surely outpace the Xbox One and, if it maintains momentum, the PS4 in 3 years, tops.

@Agent721 interesting, i recalled 3ds having a rocky start and picking up steam in year 2....17m was a phenomenal start. Wonder why it seemed so gloomy in hind sight?

I can't really see it pulling another 7 mil in just 2.5 months. Beating wiiu lifetime seems easy, but 17 seems like a stretch. Or might be supply constrained more than demand constrained, but that seems unlikely. 70% of 9.5 months in 2.5 still needed? Nah. If only because they don't seem to have another 7m to sell

@bezerker99 No you're not, you got nothing not even a Switch so yeah you are screw.

@CorvoRevo
"Only 117.000 copies of Xenoblade 2 ?? How ?!?! "

Are you expecting more than 1 million in 3 days ??

@BensonUii A huge number of MH fans and players love it portable because of the playing with friends aspect and historically MH has sold way better on portable systems then on home consoles. I DO INDEED think MH games on home consoles is good but its such a shame they completely ignored the switch. MH: World on the switch would perform well enough on a home console aspect but would perform exceptionally well for handheld compared to previous iterations.

@NEStalgia

Agreed. I doubt it will reach that too. Yeah, the 3ds figures surprised me too! That sucker has sold nearly 70 million units!

Big hit that 3ds...yes, much less than the DS, but very respectable none the less.

@Agent721 Yeah, I knew it sold pretty dang well (still ahead of PS4 for now!) but the first year surprised me. They abandoned WiiU's launch to double down on 3DS, but I remembered it being in trouble...and 17m is not trouble. I suppose that included 3D Land, but still...from "struggling" and "price cut" to 17M in one year is pretty intense.

@NEStalgia

I agree. That number did not match up with the sense that it started off very poorly.