14 DAY TRIAL // Like it does every week, titanic Japanese retailer Tsutaya published its sales charts in order to provide the gaming world with a better view of gaming trends in the Land of the Rising Sun.
This particular week the chart detailing what games achieved the best sales numbers in Japan is pretty hot, as two greatly hyped and highly anticipated video games were released, Destiny and Super Smash Bros.
Destiny and Super Smash Bros. jump to the top
The retailer shows that the most popular title was, as expected, Super Smash Bros., which is available only on the Nintendo 3DS for the time being, with Bungie's sci-fi first-person shooter Destiny coming in second and third, on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 platforms, respectively.
Following them are Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution on the PS3, Dragon Quest X, Youkai Watch 2: Honke and Youkai Watch 2: Ganso, all three on the Nintendo 3DS.
Closing the top ten are Toukiden: Kiwami on the PS Vita, Samurai Warriors 4 on the PlayStation 4, and Yoshi's New Island on the 3DS.
Other noteworthy titles are Mario Kary 8 for the Wii U at spot number 11 and Diablo 3: Ultimate Evil Edition, with the PS3 version at 12 and the PS4 one at position number 18.
The big picture
The Japanese charts are usually dominated by local games, and Western ones only seldom make it to the top, when they're really big, as Bungie's new shooter is. Destiny's performance is very good, taking into account the fact that it was released as a PlayStation exclusive and that it managed to beat several popular series, such as Naruto and Youkai.
Super Smash Bros. managed to crush all manner of competition and entered the charts straight at number one, which is hardly surprising given the popularity of the brawling game, throwing together all sorts of characters from popular Nintendo franchises (and friends).
While the Japanese retailer only publishes data from its own stores, being one of the biggest such players on the market offers a somewhat accurate measure of how things are going, at least until Wednesday, when the Media Create charts will become available.
Media Create's figures will offer a much better look at how the new entries positioned themselves, and will also show how much the hardware platform sales were affected by the releases. Another point of interest will be Microsoft's Xbox One sales on its second week in Japan, following the lukewarm reception it got at launch on September 4, amounting to just 24k units pushed.
