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It was another slow week at Japanese retail last week, marking the second consecutive week of decline for its physical game market. This is partly due to a lack of high-profile new releases, as the only new entries this week were Warner Bros’ Shadow of War and Square Enix’s Lost Sphear, the successor to Tokyo RPG Factory’s I am Setsuna.
Even Shadow of War didn’t set the charts alight, as it only managed to sell just over 23,000 copies, according to the latest data from Famitsu. Still, that’s better than its predecessor, as Shadow of Mordor shipped just 14,000 copies back in December 2014, where it charted at No.17.
Lost Sphear also had a rather muted debut, selling 7,000 units on PS4 and 6,500 on Switch. Together, that’s less than a quarter of the 59,000 launch sales for I am Setsuna, which released on PS4 and Vita in February 2016.
Elsewhere in the charts, Splatoon 2 held its place at No.2, with sales remaining at a steady 18,000 copies, and the week before’s No.1 Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga fell to No.3 after a week-on-week decline of 44 per cent. FIFA 18 continued to drop down the charts, too, landing at No.6 after a fall of 40 per cent in sales week-on-week.
On the hardware side, the Switch remained the top-selling console of the week, selling another 37,000 units, while the PS4 remained relatively static at just under 20,000 units.
Here’s the Top Ten software chart in full for the week ending October 15th:
1. Middle-earth: Shadow of War (PS4), Warner Bros Japan, 23,046 (New)
2. Splatoon 2 (Switch), Nintendo, 18,392
3. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga: + Bowser’s Minions (3DS), Nintendo, 15,673
4. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Switch), Nintendo, 12,363
5. Pokken Tournament DX (Switch), Nintendo, 9,420
6. FIFA 18 (PS4), EA, 7,731
7. Lost Sphear (PS4), Square Enix, 7,269 (New)
8. Lost Sphear (Switch), Square Enix, 6,562 (New)
9. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch), Nintendo, 6,161
10. Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age (3DS), Square Enix, 4,939
And here are the hardware figures for the same period:
Nintendo Switch, 37,277
PS4, 19,950
New Nintendo 2DS XL, 11,563
New Nintendo 3DS XL, 7,441
PS4 Pro, 6,536
PS Vita, 4,142
Nintendo 2DS, 1,055
New Nintendo 3DS, 98
PS3, 72
Xbox One S, 53
Wii U, 49
