
Last year was a fantastic one for Nintendo - the Switch launched in March, gaining universal excitement from the off, and a splattering of truly brilliant experiences like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey took the world by storm. As it turns out, despite not feeling quite as dramatic so far, 2018 isn't playing out to be all that bad, either.
The figures below show the top 20 best-selling games of Japan so far this year. As you can see, eleven of these titles are published by Nintendo and are exclusive to the Switch and 3DS platforms, with every spot from number two to number seven secured. Nintendo has always performed well in Japan, with its games often finding themselves at the top of lists like this, but the sheer amount of titles and the sales they're generating is still impressive to behold.
The first set of numbers show this year's Japanese sales, with those in brackets indicating how many it has sold in its entire lifetime for the region (if the two figures are the same, this simply means that the game released this year).
1) Monster Hunter: World 1.949.592 [1.949.592] Capcom
2) Splatoon 2 631.298 [2.383.394] Nintendo
3) Kirby Star Allies 536.881 [536.881] Nintendo
4) Mario Kart 8 Deluxe 450.206 [1.553.950] Nintendo
5) Super Mario Odyssey 389.680 [1.713.960] Nintendo
6) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 292.459 [980.503] Nintendo
7) Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon 240.135 [2.243.742] Nintendo / Pokémon Co.
8) Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 2018 217.178 [217.178] Konami
9) Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle 200.131 [200.131] Nintendo
10) Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze 179.179 [179.179] Nintendo
11) Nintendo Labo: Toy-Con 01 - Variety Kit 174.792 [174.792] Nintendo
12) Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise 174.744 [174.744] SEGA
13) Dynasty Warriors 9 171.195 [171.195] Koei Tecmo
14) Mario Party: The Top 100 153.015 [199.203] Nintendo
15) Dissidia: Final Fantasy NT 150.250 [150.250] Square Enix
16) Far Cry 5 144.455 [144.455] Ubisoft
17) Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet 126.585 [126.585] Bandai Namco
18) Mario Tennis Aces 122.070 [122.070] Nintendo
19) Dark Souls: Remastered 112.974 [112.974] From Software
20) Super Robot Wars X 107.866 [107.866] Bandai Namco
If only Monster Hunter: World had released on Switch as well, huh? We'll leave that argument for another day.
Are you surprised by any of these inclusions? Are you happy to see Nintendo's games performing well in its home region? Feel free to throw us a comment below.
[source gearnuke.com]
Comments 28
Why is Dark Souls highlighted in red??
@Spoony_Tech Because they have articles for the game since it’s eventually going to come to Switch.
This is mostly good for Nintendo, but unfortunately there are no 3rd party Switch games in the top 20. Octopath Traveler will probably change that though.
@NewAdvent Perhaps the above is physical only and the 1M+ included DL?
@NewAdvent Yes, BOTW passes a million sales a while ago. I don’t know why it’s different on this list.
Monster Hunter, Switch evergreens, and everything else...
Nintendomination
If they would have shown the entire list, which is a top 100, then it would show that Nintendo's results are actually even more impressive than just that which is displayed in only one-fifth of that list...
NINTENDO is really sitting on a goldmine with the Switch.
Not sure how these numbers work.
If Physical only: MHW was at 2million back in April
If includes Digital - it did 3 days after launch
🙃
This is wishful thinking.... but what if Panic Button are porting MHW to the switch.... Come on capcom do it...
@FlimFlam mario + rabbids is up there for 3rd party
Mario Party The Top 100 outselling Far Cry 5? Awful.
@peanutbuttercup You're right. My bad.
Only 7 games out of the top 20 not supported on Switch (and not even those in the top 10 ones) if I am not mistaken. Sounds right, right?
@Agramonte Maybe it's adjusted for trade-ins? That's the only thing I can think of (and it's probably wrong).
Pretty amazing list. Also, non-Nintendo but glad to see Sword Art Online getting some love in Japan. It took some heat in the West for being "a worse Xenoblade in 3rd person) but it's actually a really cool, unique game, which is especially amazing for being an anime licensed game.
@FlimFlam Yeah, not sure what is happening on that list. A few Switch games also do not add up. GamerNuke does not give a source - so we will probably never know.
Agree with your other post - Will be good to see a good full price 3rd party like Octopath hit the list.
@Agramonte
These number are retail sales only.
If you include digital sales, then Monster Hunter world sold ~2 million copies at launch, and currently sits at ~2.8 million copies sold in total.
Nintendo makes great games, and they make a lot of them.
@westman98 yeah what I thought at first also. But by the time I got ZBOTW to 956,000 (4-15-18)... MHW was already at 2,003,054.
So I thought this also does not include bundle and limited editions on top of Digital. But the Splatoon number here is higher so that cant be it either
https://gematsu.com/2018/04/media-create-sales-4-9-18-4-15-18
I gave up at that point - 😏
@Agramonte
Famitsu and Media Create are different companies. This article references Famitsu data. That Gematsu particle references Media Create data.
@westman98 There you go... I could not find the source in the Gearnuke page. Why those 2 are different been asked 100s of times.
I usually stick with MC at Gematsu - so did not realize they had a new list out.
@FlimFlam this ain't a top 20 Switch list; this's a top 20 video game list as in general.
@ReaderRagfish Do you recommend it?
@Agramonte As someone pointed out to me, Mario + Rabbids is a 3rd party game game that made the list, but obviously that game has received more than a little help from the Mario brand. It will be nice to see a 3rd party game that has no Nintendo characters in it doing well in Japan. I’m hoping that Octopath Traveler and NIS’s releases start to bring over the Vita’s audience. I think it will since the Switch is really the last viable portable system out there.
@JJ286 I know. I was just saying that I wish that those 3rd party games were on Switch too.
@FlimFlam Yeah, That was more like a collaboration. The "Aunt Betty" of the world probably thought KB was a new Mario game. Yep, and lets not forget Atlus.
@Agramonte Yes, Atlus and Sega, too. To be honest, I’m not that excited for SMTV - it’s too gory for my tastes. But, hey, if it brings more JRPG fans to the Switch and thus more JRPGs, then who am I to complain?
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