Japanese Charts: Game Builder Garage Beats Final Fantasy VII And Ratchet & Clank To Number One

Yeah that's cos almost no-one in Japan bothered buying a PS5.

@Dezzy There's 800,000 of them in the wild, 15,000 is still quite low, given the fact that it's one of the first big exclusives. Still, digital isn't being taking into account, but I don't think it's much higher.

16mil user-base vs 600k

I haven’t even bought FFVII, let alone beat it.

Looks great, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart PS5 on number 3. 😊
The PS5 game that I must buy.
BTW, Clank's voice Japanese version sounds weird with higher pitch. 😆

@Bizaster To be fair, it is a re-release, and I am fairly sure the game does also get upgraded to PS5 for free (with the exception of the new DLC, which you must still pay for unless you buy this physical release).

Minecraft will reach 2m milestone next week.

@Octane Don't forget, that probably ~400,000 of those 800k are the digital only no disc reading version, since thanks to stock people who want the system can't be picky. That's gonna shift the physical - digital split even more than usual.

Still, 15k out of 400k for both of the systems 2 first big titles is surprising.

Nice, PS5 games finally exist in the top ten at last. Not completely thrill about the Final Fantasy VII Remake port but Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is a splendid summer blockbuster. Nice to see a new Guilty Gear game up there too but kinda lame that it looks just the same as the Xrd games.

PS5 software sales are awful. What in tarnation is going on over there? Is Japan not a priority for SONY anymore? Has it bombed? Do they know something we don't lol?

@link3710 According to the above list, it's not even 150,000 digital units

@Haruki_NLI Lol, somehow I missed it was tracked separately.

@Octane

Nearly a million PS5s have been sold in Japan? Yet one of the first major exclusives only sells 15,000 copies? I struggle to believe that.

@BloodNinja That's a wise choice though, the game is not finish yet so you may as well wait. That's what I'm doing too, I hadn't buy or play the FFVII remake yet so I'm waiting til Square completed all episodes before I could jump onto the game.

@Bizaster Yeah if only it was a game and not a game tools.

@Ghost_of_Hasashi Hahah, see you in 15 years, then. LOL

That's..... definitely unexpected. Even if it outsold those games I never would've expected it to outsell them by that margin. Yikes.

@Dezzy, you can see PS5's total Japanese sales in the chart in the article. Regular is sitting at just above 680,000 units & Digital is just over 135,000 units, so just over 800,000 units total.

Thing I'm surprised about is lack of mk8 and acnh. Great job game builder garage (shame uk didn't get physical release) and miitopia, still in 4th!

@BloodNinja That's the thing too, they are taking the game into a totally different direction so it's not a one to one remake of FFVII. If the whole game turns out to be garbage in the end then I wouldn't had waste my money on it anyways. We still don't know if we could transfer all our datas from the first game to the second one and so on.

Also, anyone else noticed the higher xbox sales?

Japanese taste in gaming it’s getting weird and worse by the minute one of this days we are gonna see calculator and notepad in the top ten

Playstation 5, you say. Isn't that one of those eBay exclusive consoles?

Miitopia in 4th, I love to see it. Evidence we need Tomodachi Life.

<Insert Sweating Square Enix>

You wouldn't think Gamebuilder Garage was a game announced out of the blue with basically no fanfare.

@Dezzy The PS5 sales are in the article:

PlayStation 5 – 15,648 (684,515)
PlayStation 5 Digital Edition – 3,771 (135,284)

The number in between the parentheses are total sold. 684,515 + 135,284 = 819799 PS5s sold in Japan.

@link3710 Yeah I wonder what the digital-physical split is for Japan. One argument I often hear is that they prefer handhelds because of the limited living space, so maybe they prefer digital as well. Over here it's mostly in favour of the disc version. But then there's probably also people who got the disc system and still bought it digitally.

@MS7000
In Japan, it costs ¥100 to upgrade from the PS4 to PS5 version of FFVII Remake.

@Dezzy I think you'll find every single ps5 delivered to Japan is sold immediately. They just aren't prioritising Japan anymore as their main players are the west.

Very impressive sales for Game Builder Garage, riding high on the eShop too, a big success it seems.

@Octane 65% of PlayStation sales are now digital according to Sony. Plus Japan has always been Nintendo land. The last R&C game came out in 2016 when there was around 4 million ps4s and that only sold 27k copies and came 3rd. The whole rest of the chart was manly 3ds and wiiu. Sony haven't been big in Japan for many years, they make their money in the west.

Woof, those software numbers for the PS5 aren't good.

Who would've thought that a small, new IP would've more than tripled the sales of a new FF game?

@Octane As another commenter pointed out, the disc / digital versions are listed separately in the numbers, whoops

@KryptoniteKrunch "Who would've thought that a small, new IP would've more than tripled the sales of a new FF game?"

There are a few reasons for the low FF sales.

1: There is an upgrade system that cost 100 yen if you own the digital/physical version of the ps4 game. So there is no reason to buy it again.

2: That only counts as physical sales so we don't know what digital sales are like in Japan

3: Final Fantasy isn't as big in Japan as it is in the west. Dragon Quest is far more popular over in Japan.

@GKO900
Japanese gaming taste is not weird, it's unique.
And being unique is not something bad, isn't it ?
Japanese gamers do care gameplay aspect than graphic aspect.

These charts don't account for digital sales right? So isn't the list of games kind of pointless now? You and probably assume similar trends in digital sales, but still.

I just kind of feel like hardware sales are all that really matter anymore.

@SilentHunter382 "3: Final Fantasy isn't as big in Japan as it is in the west. Dragon Quest is far more popular over in Japan."

A thought I've come to quite agree with. FF games never live up to the hype for me. I don't dislike them, but Dragon Quest comes closer to its reputation than FF does.

Monster hunter still ticking along

Not a surprise with FF7. Most people already bought the one on PS4.
Gettin the PS5 version is just for people who didn’t buy it and/or really want to have the PS5 version.
I have the PS4 version and am ok with that.

@Anti-Matter Well I don’t think Game Builder Garage has better gameplay than Ratchet and Clank but then again you’re pretty unique yourself so I can understand why you would like something like that

@Slowdive You think SONY would make another handheld?

@Slowdive They do seem to be focusing on big budget 'experiences' which seem counter intuitive to handhelds. They tend to be very cluttered and difficult to see what is going on at the best of times on a large screen haha. And contrary to public opinion, I think the Japanese audience isn't taken with that kind of game as much as the west. I remember an issue back in the PS2 era was a lot of Japanese players found fps games confusing (No idea if that is still the case to some degree.) I'm not convinced the issue is they like handhelds. And if that isn't the main issue, then releasing a handheld with their philosophy is risky. Especially as Nintendo are partnered with a company that can match what they can make these days.

@Slowdive I remember visiting Japan in 2001 (I bought a Gamecube, Luigi's Mansion, Wave Race and Super Monkey Ball on launch day hee hee.) It was a culture shock back then watching everyone walking around staring at mobile phones. It was weird. But today...it's standard lol.

That is great to see Game Builder Garage do well. Ninja Gaiden doing OK on PS4, R&C was a flop, and FF7 not doing that well. Sony needs to realize that ignoring Japan isn't a smart idea.

@Dr_Lugae The game has actually been fairly well promoted in Japan, with various commercials aired on TV, including this one with the fantastic Nodon song:

https://youtu.be/scxn2yn_TP0

As well as a series of shorter CMs showing where programming pops up in every day life:

https://youtu.be/DSib_KqSRiI

This comes amidst a large-scale push in the education system towards teaching kids basic programming skills, combined with a huge rollout of tablets and tech to get kit in classrooms as part of the Giga Schools initiative.

Nintendo had done well to capture the programming zeitgeist is this regard, with a title that seems to outperform a lot of the software currently used in classrooms at accessibly introducing basic programming concepts.

where is resident evil village for ps4? monster hunter rise is still in top ten . I wonder who capcom is more happy with Nintendo or Sony.? i am happy for game builder garage though. i knew it would be number one though. it had ZERO competition. so happy for such a great game.

And FFXVI is a timed PS5 exclusive, that'll be fun to see the sales (or lack thereof) when it releases.

@SilentHunter382 WHAT? Final Fantasy has always been huge in Japan.

@michellelynn0976 this FF is a free upgrade if you own the ps4 version, which I would imagine a lot of ps5 owners do. Even better if you don't, just buy a used ps4 copy from eBay and then get the upgrade.

@tntswitchfan68 resident evil village sold 4 million copies in 20 days WW, a big majority of those on a Sony platform. Im sure capcom are very happy with Sony.
Great news for garage, I'm really pleased to see that doing well. I love it when Nintendo innovates like this.

@Maxz Oh right, I had no idea. That's pretty good, makes sense why it's done quite well.

PS5 is having a re stock in Japan after having issues with that. But still isn’t sealing a lot like ppl predicted. Let’s be honest PS5 and the whole new generation is a total failure.

@Serialsid True. I just think Sony is making a mistake, but if they can well without Japan, OK, that just gives Nintendo more games. Garage is a fun and innovative game.

I apologize, you seem like a nice person. Have fun with your PS5.

@Serialsid Oh yeah. You are correct.

wow, not a single mario type game in the top ten.