Hardware sales dropped 20% since last week

Oct 8, 2014 14:15 GMT  ·  By

The latest sales figures from Japan are in, showing the evolution of software and hardware during the September 29 to October 5 week in the Land of the Rising Sun.

The Japanese market is traditionally dominated by the Nintendo 3DS handheld gaming device, but since the PlayStation 4 was released there in February and the Xbox One followed suit last month, their evolution on the powerful, but largely self-contained market is pretty interesting to watch.

Japan is one of the biggest video game consumer markets, being among the top 10 countries in the world when it comes to revenue from what is one of the world's most popular pastimes. It's also a difficult place for traditional consoles and core games to penetrate, and the biggest players in the industry all have their eyes set on it.

Super Smash Bros. is king of software sales yet again

The latest information revealed by Japanese retail sales tracking firm Media Create points to Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS being number on in Japan in terms of sales once again, still showing a powerful momentum, and almost reaching the 1.5 million marker in less than a month after launch.

Newcomer Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix, on PS3, sits at number 2 with 85k units sold, followed by Yo-kai Watch 2: Ganso / Honke, the popular role-playing game for the 3DS, which surpassed the 2.6 million units sold milestone in total sales.

Destiny is still in the top 20, with the PS3 version coming in at number 10 with 7k units sold, and the PS4 one being at 19 with 3.5k copies pushed.

Codemasters' F1 2014, also a newcomer, managed to break into the top 20 with 4.3k copies sold, and Platinum Games' Bayonetta 2 closes the top, with a total of 50k units sold since launch.

The hardware charts are still dominated by the Nintendo 3DS

Unsurprisingly, the 3DS is at the top with 22k units sold, a significant drop since last week's 30k, followed by the PlayStation Vita with 14k, showing a healthy spike thanks to some new releases.

The Wii U and PS4 are tied at 7k each, followed by the PlayStation 3 with 5k devices sold, slowly dwindling week after week.

Microsoft's Xbox One computer entertainment system managed to sell 1k units during the week, the same as the last one did, totaling a number of 32k units sold since its release at the beginning of September.

The PSP and Xbox 360 registered negligible sales, and the overall trajectory is descending since last week, with a significant drop in overall hardware sales. The statistics show that the PlayStation Vita and Wii U systems are both selling better than they did one year ago.