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During the week of June 16th – June 22nd, Nintendo published Pokémon Art Academy in Japan. The game sold 31,080 copies in its first week on store shelves, and Japanese sales tracker Media Create reports that the game sold through 70.11% of its shipment.
In terms of raw sales figures, that’s a little lower than Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone!, which was released for the Nintendo 3DS in September 2012. That game sold 35,910 copies in its first week, with a sell-through of 45.94%.
There’s more to this situation than meets the eye, though.
If you follow the sales column here on Siliconera, you’re probably aware of Nintendo’s Recommended Monthly Software Campaign, which gives Nintendo 3DS buyers in Japan a download code for a free game with their 3DS purchase. Pokémon Art Academy is one of the games in this campaign in both June and July, so it’s impressive that it sold as much as it did, considering that a fair number of people could have—and probably did—get it for free.
Additionally, sales of both old and new titles slowed down during the week due to it being the week before payday, so that’s another challenge Pokémon Art Academy had to contend with. Not too shabby, all things considered.
