This Week In Sales: Rune Factory 4 And Digimon World, Neck-And-Neck

Period: The week of July 16th – July 22nd (2012)

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Top-seller: Kirby’s Dream Collection: Special Edition – 100,286

Nintendo 3DS sales: 44,399 | Total sales: 6,562,871

PlayStation Vita sales: 11,932 | Total sales: 843,856

<< Last week’s software sales chart

 

New games? Pfft, whatever. Kirby’s Dream Collection: Special Edition, which compiles the first six Kirby games on a single disc along with some bonus challenge stages, was last week’s best-selling title in Japan. It sold 100,286 copies in its first week. Behind it at the #2 spot was Pokémon Black/White 2.

 

Not too far behind Pokémon were two new releases that people have had their eyes on for a while—Rune Factory 4 and Digimon World Re:Digitize. Both games were neck-and-neck, selling close to the 86,000 mark.

 

For Rune Factory, that’s a huge, huge improvement in sales over its predecessors. Here’s a comparison of Rune Factory 4 with first-week and total lifetimes sales of the previous mainline Rune Factory games to put things in perspective:

 

(2006) Rune Factory – 42,210 | 110,828

(2008) Rune Factory 2 – 52,049 | 117,572

(2009) Rune Factory 3 – 41,279 | 94,567

(2012) Rune Factory 4 – 85,955

 

Rune Factory 4’s success can be attribute to smart design choices such as the ability to play as both male and female characters, an improved relationship system, and the character archetypes chosen for the game’s bachelors and bachelorettes. Personally, I was hoping Rune Factory 4 would be able to break the 100k mark at launch, but regardless, these sales are most certainly a big step forward for the series.

 

Moving on, for Digimon World Re:Digitize, here’s a comparison with some of the recent Digimon games on the Nintendo DS (first week | lifetime sales listed):

 

(2007) Digimon World Dawn/Dusk – 77,551 | 178,732

(2008) Digimon World Championship – 15167 | 41,929

(2010) Digimon Story: Lost Evolution – 34,409 | 89,665

(2011) Digimon Story: Super Xros Wars Red/Blue – 35,752 | 92,320

(2012) Digimon World Re:Digitize – 85,817

 

Keep in mind that the Digimon games listed above are of different genres, so direct comparisons aren’t quite possible. That having been said, Re:Digitize banks heavily on nostalgia (being an homage to the original Digimon World) and is a game with better production values than all of its recent predecessors, so it isn’t surprising to see it doing well.

 

The top-20 software sales chart for the week is as follows:

 

Lw Tw Title Weekly Sales Total Sales Sys. Publisher
New 01. Kirby’s Dream Collection: Special Edition 100,286 New Wii Nintendo
01. 02. Pokémon Black/White 2 92,178 2,381,586 DS Pokémon Co.
New 03. Rune Factory 4 85,955 New 3DS Marvelous AQL
New 04. Digimon World Re:Digitize 85,817 New PSP Namco Bandai
New 05. Power Pro Baseball 2012 62,740 New PS3 Konami
02. 06. Taiko Drum Master: The Little Dragon and the Mysterious Orb 31,741 97,202 3DS Namco Bandai
New 07. Power Pro Baseball 2012 28,142 New PSP Konami
New 08. New Class of Heroes: Chrono Academy 19,284 New PSP Acquire
New 09. Warriors Orochi 3 Special 18,136 New PSP Tecmo Koei
New 10. Power Pro Baseball 2012 16,837 New PSV Konami
New 11. Record of Agarest War: Marriage 14,556 New PSP Compile Heart
New 12. Toki no Kizuna 13,667 New PSP Idea Factory
04. 13. Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry’s Wonderland 3D 12,820 825,273 3DS Square Enix
09. 14. Mario Party 9 10,969 492,383 Wii Nintendo
New 15. Felyne de Puzzle 10,738 New PSP Capcom
05. 16. The Little Battlers: Explosive Boost 10,244 82,750 3DS Level 5
??? 17. Run for Money Tousouchuu 9,603 40,279 3DS Namco Bandai
22. 18. Toriko: Gourmet Survival 2 9,494 63,322 PSP Namco Bandai
03. 19. Pocket Soccer League: Calcio Bit 8,685 35,134 3DS Nintendo
07. 20. Etrian Odyssey IV 7,217 117,362 3DS Atlus

 

Sales data acquired from 4Gamer, Media Create and Geimin.net.

Ishaan Sahdev
About The Author
Ishaan specializes in game design/sales analysis. He's the former managing editor of Siliconera and wrote the book "The Legend of Zelda - A Complete Development History". He also used to moonlight as a professional manga editor. These days, his day job has nothing to do with games, but the two inform each other nonetheless.

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