3DS and Mario Kart 7 Dominate 2011 in Japan as Overall Sales Drop

A report in the Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, compiled by Entertbrain, shows that the Japanese video game retail market has fallen 8 percent in terms of value during 2011 when compared to 2011, even as overall hardware sales managed to grow.

The overall value of video game related sales in Japan for 2011 has been 454.4 billion Yen, close to 5.9 billion dollars.

The hardware sector has seen an increase of 2.4% in order to reach 179.7 billion Yen, the equivalent of 2.3 billion dollars, mostly because of the introduction of the new Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita handhelds.

Video game software sales were down by a significant 13.7 percent and reached 274.6 billion Yen, which is about 3.6 billion dollars.

The Japanese gaming market has been in decline for some time and most publishers operating on it have expressed their doubts over the possibility of growth in the future, focusing on bringing their products to Western markets in order to compensate for the decline.

The hardware sales chart for Japan in 2011 includes (figures show yearly and lifetime sales for the device):

Nintendo 3DS - 4,135,739
Nintendo Wii - 937,451 / 12,167,743
Nintendo DS - 711,204 / 32,835,502
PlayStation Portable - 1,960,177 / 18,237,108
PlayStation Vita - 402,794
PlayStation 3 - 1,467,261 / 7,417,148
Xbox 360 - 114,075 / 1,520,738

The video game chart for the same year includes:

Mario Kart 7 from Nintendo - 3DS: 1,082,391
Super Mario 3D Land from Nintendo - 3DS: 1,042,511
Monster Hunter Portable 3rd from Capcom- PSP: 1,021,457 / 4,502,446
Monster Hunter 3G from Capcom - 3DS: 809,322
Final Fantasy XIII-2 from Square Enix- PS3: 697,146
Final Fantasy Type-0 from Square Enix - PSP: 696,428
Minna no Rhythm Tengoku from Nintendo- Wii: 633,429
Tales of Xillia from Namco Bandai - PS3: 632,151
Wii Sports Resort from Nintendo - Wii: 612,807 / 2,732,655
Wii Party from Nintendo - Wii: 584,545 / 2,123,773