Splatoon 2 Crosses The Two Million Marker As Nintendo Titles Swamp The Japanese Charts

This is old news, I posted this in the forums in 2016.

Amazing that Splatoon 2 still charts near the top and it's about 7 months old. Game deserves it — it massively improved on the first game.

@WiltonRoots Your comment is old.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/02/video_super_mario_odyssey_producer_finally_addresses_mariors_nipples#comment4330653

Seeing as Monster Hunter World on Switch has been the topic of discussion again and why Capcom don't at least localise MHXX, looking at its Japanese sales there, that could be why they're not bothered with it.

Switch hardware sales seem to have levelled ot around this mark until the next big game releases. I wonder if Kirby: Star Allies will raise the needle.

Monster Hunter or not Switch will do well in Japan.

It will have: DQ11, Splatoon, Mario, Pokemon and Animal Crossing. Pretty much it will have the biggest franchises there aside from MH. Is Capcom's lost more than Nintendo's to be honest.

Thought SotC would sell more tbh. Still a great week for Nintendo. Zelda slowly gets towards the million.

Switch still selling well in Japan, and MH moves PS4 consoles, which I'm sure nobody saw coming from a mile away. It'll be interesting to see if Capcom makes a portable version of World for Switch (like they did for 3 or "tri") or just create an original entry. If Nintendo has anything to say about the matter, there will be another MH for Switch at some point. Of course, whenever Pokemon releases for Switch, the console will really take off.

For a gaming studio being name Japan Studio, they never do well in Japan....

5. [PS4] Shadow of the Colossus – 21,900 / NEW

I have always find that oddly hilarious.

Also Japan does love those Dynasty Warrior games.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Jeezus man how many times do you stealth edit your posts????

All it said originally was my comment is old.

You need to get out the house a bit more mate.

@sinalefa I'm sure it will do better in the West, but we're talking about a remake here, while it had a remaster not a long time ago.

First 3 games in the chart are PS4 games but Nintendo swamps the chart...good to know....

Also, it feels so good that ARMS and Xenoblade last week keeps charting.

So much for being death games...

I wonder if the Shadow of the Colossus remake flopped in Japan because it has been made by an american team.

@WiltonRoots Stealth edit? lol

@JJ286 None of their games do really well: Gravity Rush flopped pretty hard. The Last Guardian kinda did. Oh well, as long as I can appreciate their games, and as long as they continue making them, I won't complain.

@bitleman I doubt the consumers could tell, unless you're an avid gamer and in the know about the development behind the game. Even then, bit of a silly reason not to buy a game, right?

@sinalefa What’s strange is that SOTC was #1 in the UK.
Not only that it outsold the PS2 release, which also reached #1 by over 70%.

Given that the 10th spot in the UK does typically about 20k; SOTC did multiple times better in the UK than it did in Japan.
Strange.

Also why are there so many unnecessary shots taken at the competition in the article?

I don't like to see that.
...
...
Well, the Revenge will come soon from Nintendo Switch.
Add with Pokemon Switch, Animal Crossing Switch, Metroid Prime 4, the Switch sales will goes Crazy.

Btw, definetely Clear 100% if Xbox one is Completely a Big Joke.
A Blah Blah Blah machine.

@Fight_Teza_Fight @Saego

Yes, it seems that Western sales will be better.

@Anti-Matter You do know the last console Metroid game was rated 16+, don't you?

I’m aware I’m on a Nintendo website so some things are to be expected and I let slide but honestly... “perhaps the whole world isn’t quite 4K ready yet” (among other lines on PS4/Xbox) is not something that would have even made the 1st draft were the Switch more powerful. Can’t wait for your take on graphics when NS gets the inevitable buffed up revision down the line.

On another note, I’m glad Ultra Sun/Moon underperformed, hopefully it’s extra incentive not to halfass the Switch game.

@Octane

Well, not really surprising.
That was the case for my Eligible Age Rating.
If CERO B / TEEN / But 16+, same case with FF XII. Need time for deliberate to determine Approval or Rejection.
For Metroid case, i just be Neutral, not interested, even it was rated 16+ for Other M somehow... (wow...)

Btw, speaking about 16+, i knew if The Sims series was a really 16+ games due to Sexual content like LGBT , Kissing, WooHoo (but Not explicit ), and i did watch the latest America's Next Top Model cycle 24 in episode 6, that was about Celebration of LGBT Communities, Drag Queens, etc. I'm mature enough to handle that 16+ content. But, i have ZERO Tolerance for 18+ contents.

Nice to see Splatoon 2 becoming the first home console game to sell over 2m units in Japan for quite some time!

PS4 is having a stellar year. If you don't own one, you should get one. Plus this year we get a new God of War and Spiderman.

I love my Switch, and 2017 was a Nintendo year, but Sony owns 2018.

Good job getting this out first thing Wednesday morning. ☺

Forget Splatoon. SKYRIM is charting in Japan! Above Dragonball. That's something. I'm assuming it was either a recent release there or was on sale this week since 1/4 its lifetime sales were this week?

20k lifetime may not be much but the fact it's actually on the charts in Japan, the only Western game to be in there, is pretty significant.

@Al_Godoy
You know ?
I have a plan to buy PS4 Slim White on this April 2018.
Not because i like the machine, but i have NO Choices to play The Sims 4 on other console.
Actually i still don't like PS4, despite i will try to buy it later.

@Anti-Matter PS4's a neat little console actually. It collected dust for years, but I'm starting to really appreciate it more now that it's more fleshed out. I realize most of it's content doesn't appeal to you (I'm kind of in between, I'm much more open and interested in some aspects of that content than you are, but not as much as the "mainstream" seems to be.) But there's still plenty of stuff on there that would appeal to you. Knack 1/2, Sly Cooper 4, Ratchet & Clank, Gravity Rush 1 & 2, LBP, Tearaway, a lot of up-resed PS2 classics. The library of that kind of content isn't as deep as Nintendo's but it has it's unique strengths.)

Well MHW deserve that spot. Also Great to see SAO charted.

Same old Stuff for the Switch - almost 4 months between XenoBlade2 and Kirby. At least Ubisoft showed up for the save in Japan. Good for them - still shows how sad 3rd party support is for the Switch.

Hang in there XenoBlade2! 👍

Not surprised about shadon of the Colossus - so many new games why play a rehashed old port.

Meanwhile on PlaystationLife:

Sony dominates this weeks chart -
PS4 software outsells Switch software
PS4 hardware outsells Switch hardware

Nintendo need to sort the lava of monster hunter in the west I'll take xx or world or even 3u on the switch but someone just get on with it!

@NEStalgia
"Knack 1/2, Sly Cooper 4, Ratchet & Clank, Gravity Rush 1 & 2, LBP, Tearaway, a lot of up-resed PS2 classics. "

Knack 1/2 ? Nah...
Sly Cooper ? Not interested....
Rachet & Clank ? I had sold that game last April 2017 after 2 hours gameplay. My heart still cannot accept the Guns and Wars from that rated E10+ games.
Little Big Planet 3 ? That ugly Sackboy ? Sorry, no thanks.
Gravity Rush 1 + 2 ? No thanks. Not interested at all with Full Action games.
Tearaway ? I don't like the Graphic Art style.
Those titles above are oftenly i saw from Playasia when i browsed some interesting ps4 games, but i wasn't impressed or didn't react at all.
My reaction toward those games was just Skip the page all the time, not Stop by one interesting title.

A lot of PS2 Classics ? You know, my PS2 games are MOSTLY Rhythm games from Konami (Dance Dance Revolution series by Major, Para Para Paradise, Guitar Freaks & DrumMania series, Beatmania IIDX series, Pop'n Music), K-1 series, Bomberman Battles, Bomberman Land 3, Monster Rancher 4, etc. Even my PS1 games list still dominated by Dance Dance Revolution games (DDR 3rd Mix, DDR 4th Mix, DDR 5th Mix, DDR Extra Mix, DDR Best Hits)
I don't play Action games that much, like typical male gamers usually do.

The other games like The Sims Bustin' Out, Kao the Kangaroo Round 2, The Dog Island, The Sims 2 Pets, Street Fighter Anthology, etc i pick on Nintendo machines (Gamecube, Wii, Switch) rather on PS machines.

Monster Hunter is basically carrying the PS4 in Japan just like it did the PSP many years ago. Sony must be breathing a huge sigh of happiness that Capcom approached them with MHW.

The only other game that could do this is the planned FFVII Remake; unless it gets pushed to the PS6.

If I’m not mistaken didn’t Monster Hunter 4 sell more in Japan in 2 days than World sold in 3 weeks? I don’t think Sony or Capcom are too happy about that. Maybe it’s selling enough in the rest of the world to make up for it.

@Octane oh yeah I enjoy their games but they are call Japan Studio and Japan doesn't like them....oh the irony.

@JJ286 They're called Japan Studio because they're based in Japan. And it's not as if it's only Japan that doesn't like their games. Most of their games aren't successful in any territory. If there's one underrated developer, it's Japan Studio.

@Anti-Matter That's surprising! Maybe it's a culture thing....Knack, Ratchet, Sly feel like you're inside what was American kids cartoons back in the 80's, so even with their technical flaws, when I play them it's kind of a warm return to being a kid again Space blasters and robot invasions was just standard fare for kids cartoons, or at least back then was.

LBP.....is very, very, very British......

Gravity Rush is an acquired taste. I got absolutely hooked on the Vita original....the world, the story, the mood, and the free flight really stuck to me. But I admit the gameplay mechanics are probably not for everyone. I came from loving space-sim games a long time ago so it gave me familiar gameplay but with a twist of not fighting a space ship battle.

The up-resed PS2 classics are largely RPGs...the old FF's which I know you like (but already have on OG hardware), Dark Cloud 2 (was just $5 on sale on the US store!) from Level 5, etc. PaRappa the Rapper was on the sale too....I'm guessing you might have liked that since your'e into music games.

Rhythm.....like fighters is a genre with it's own cult following. Sadly, that will never be for me. I have no rhythm as any childhood music teacher can verify I can play Thumper ok...but that's more of a racer-meets-pinball than a real rhythm game.

@Trickbaby14 You'd be correct. World isn't anywhere remotely near the original release of MH4 or MH X in Japan in regards to sales. That plus the considerable fall off in sales means it most likely won't ever reach their lifetime sales in Japan. We're seeing just how much more Japan prefers mobile MH compared to console MH.

It is however coming close to MH3's 3DS sales.

Most of MH World's growth in sales were essentially redistributed to other regions. Which is expected, since the game is targeting a more western audience.

@Ernest_The_Crab Generations sold around 3 million in Japan. World sold around 2 million at launch (if you include digital). Maybe it won't reach 3 million, but it will be close. They'll lose a couple 100,000 sales in Japan, because it's on home consoles, but they've gained several million sales in the west. And that's all without the PC version!

@Octane I'm not so sure about it selling close to 3mil. Bi-weekly sales have dropped to around 150k. It's also been shown, that in Japan most console games don't have the same kind of sales endurance portable games have (Nintendo console games are a bit strange in that regard).

I see it selling about 2.3 million at best on PS4 given those particular factors. I can see it selling more than MH X with the PC sales included. Though that still proves that portable MH is still king in Japan when you need two different platforms to compete with it in Japan.

Capcom will most likely be happy about the combined sales, at the same time they'll also be looking into how to get that considerable portable market.

@Octane @Ernest_The_Crab And lets not forget that while gamers obsess over unit sales, the companies could care less, what matters is net return: profit. Even if MHW were to sell 20% more than MH4 or MHX over a period of years, there's the fact that a game of massively greater development budget plus the costs of producing, publishing, distributing, licensing, and certifying on 2-3 different platforms versus the relatively low budget development and single platform distribution means that even were it to outsell slightly on the broader market may still fail to come even close to the same profitability. Gamers, be it games or consoles, always look at unit sales and ignore revenues, while it's the other way around that matters to the business. MHW cost them a LOT more to sell, and I imagine needs to sell quite a lot more than the 3DS games to make close to the same gains off it.

If it sells LESS units than prior entries they're pretty much taking a bath, but doing it in style.

"Japan most console games don't have the same kind of sales endurance portable games have (Nintendo console games are a bit strange in that regard)"

Due to the mass market popularity of handheld in Japan, console owners are going to be the very dedicated enthusiast market which follows the western pattern of "after launch week, all sales have been made." Nintendo owns the mass market there which has a longer tail buying pattern than the early adopting enthusiast market.

@Ernest_The_Crab That depends on how you look at it. 3 million on a console with a 25 million userbase, or 2-2.5 million on a console with a 6 million userbase. Is portable MH more popular because it's portable, or because more people own portable gaming devices?

Either way, there's nothing stopping them from releasing a portable version of World in the future. Instead of releasing an ultimate version on PS4, Xbox and PC, they could release a ''portable'' version on Switch, mostly the same, but with some new features, that way fans who own both systems can enjoy the game a second type with new content.

@NEStalgia Because we have no idea how expensive development was. As much as companies like to say it's more expensive (well, actually it's the fans that say that, the publishers themselves are often very tight-lipped on the matter), we have no idea how much it costs to develop a 3DS game vs a PS4 game. You could also argue that $45 vs $60 is enough to offset the potential difference in development costs. For example, it wouldn't be too unthinkable if developers made high quality assets for 3DS games, but downscaled them to get the game running on 3DS, thus resulting in about the same amount of work it would take to develop an asset for an HD game, of course, without the extra polishing you wouldn't see in a 3DS game. But we have no idea, and sales figures is all we have.

On top of that, I also wonder what's most beneficial for a company. Selling 3 million copies with a profit margin of $20 per game, or selling 5 million copies with a profit margin of $10 per game. The former nets the highest profits overall, but the latter guarantees a bigger fanbase, which usually means a more stable fanbase. More people to sell merchandise to, more people to sell DLC to, etc. I'm sure it's not purely about profits. I mean, it shouldn't be in theory. You never know how greedy the people are running the businesses! Some seem to only care about short-term profits.

LOL charts. The fact that Super Mario Odyssey, Splatoon 2 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe are all million-sellers is enough for me. (And Breath of the Wild isn't far behind.) They're hits, Nintendo is back in form, yadda, yadda, yadda...

Now give me Animal Crossing, pretty please. lol

@Anti-Matter the PS4 is great. I evaluate consoles on the quality of their games, and Sony delivers in spades. Great exclusives, great games, great fun.

I know you like less adult themed games, and I can assure you that you can find a great deal of them on PS4, lots of cool stuff. I also believe that something like the Uncharted series and The Last of Us are among the best videogames of all time.

I tell you, I love Nintendo, but I love games first and foremost.

@WiltonRoots I had an exhausting day, but these comments just made it worthy. Thank you!

Japanese charts are nomally so predictable, but SotC should be better, but I guess they have MH and DW

Inb4 all the salty comments over the headline.

@Octane Except Shadow of the Colossus sold really good in UK and I'm pretty sure it did too on US since it was among Amazon's best sellers.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE And yet it's still a good comment, considering the point I'm pretty sure he's trying to make with it.

@Fight_Teza_Fight
The UK loves PlayStation, not really surprised SotC would do better there. I didn't think it'd sell that great in Japan because a lot of games these days aren't huge sellers. There's a few franchises that are but most, even some of the popular ones from the past like Dynasty Warriors and Yakuza, have seen lower than expected debuts for more recent releases.

@JJ286 Shadow has never actually sold well in Japan. Most of its sales are generated in the western markets so it'll be perfectly fine.

I'm much more concerned about Dragon Ball FighterZ since previous Dragon Ball fighting games (especially Budokai) have sold fairly well in Japan (500k+). I hope it's more of a stock issue (like Xenoverse) rather than "having issues selling".

MH:W sales have been great but it's spread out on different platforms while 3DS titles were able to get a couple million on one. World also has a much bigger budget and needs to rake in more to be profitable. I want to know if all these new hunters will stay with the franchise though. Most of my friends who never played the portable versions have gone through the game once and are pretty much done with it. A couple have found fun in making different sets and trying to beat personal hunt times but that won't hold forever either.

4 PS4 titles out of top 5 games and all new releases. Nintendo can't really expect from 2017 evergreen games to carry her through 2018. At least PS4 sales have slowed down. Nintendo if you plan to make a move, now its the freakin' time!

@dimi Kirby and Labo in the next two months.

I have to say I am shocked that the Sword Art Online game sold that well. I have defended the anime as not nearly as bad as many of the haters claim. But anime based games even in Japan have a reputation of being lazy cash grabs. The gameplay footage I saw made the game look... alright. But the animations and characters looked really noticeably stiff to me. Perhaps that was old footage and I should look again.

@Roam85 Labo is something different. Not exactly a traditional video game. And 1-2 new games for kids in next 2 months don't sound too promising.

@gortsi I don't like biting, but sometimes you've just got to...

@Ernest_The_Crab and thats exactly my whole point that the studio is call Japan Studio and they never sell well there which is ironic.

Is that 2mil total just in Japan? Daamn.