Period: The week of February 4th – February 10th (2013)
Top-seller: Dragon Quest VII – 827,922
Nintendo 3DS sales: 38,645 | Total sales: 7,971,279
Nintendo 3DS XL sales: 89,050 | Total sales: 2,542,877
PlayStation Vita sales: 8,762 | Total sales: 1,212,364
Wii U sales: 12,185 | Total sales: 770,629
<< Last week’s software sales chart
Last week was fairly slow in Japan, but the one major game that was released more than made up for it. Square Enix’s Dragon Quest VII remake for the Nintendo 3DS opened with 827,922 copies sold in its first week. Square Enix announced on Monday that they had shipped 1 million copies of the game.
That makes Dragon Quest VII has the second-highest launch of any Dragon Quest remake in recent years. Here’s how its first week sales stack up against the previous three remakes:
(2007) Dragon Quest IV – 597,301
(2008) Dragon Quest V – 643,764
(2010) Dragon Quest VI – 906,458
(2013) Dragon Quest VII – 827,922
You may notice that Dragon Quest VI saw higher launch numbers than Dragon Quest VII, and there are likely a couple of reasons for that. The first is that Dragon Quest VI released to a massive audience of over 25 million Nintendo DS users. As of now, the Nintendo 3DS is at less than half that number in Japan.
The other—and more likely—reason could be that Dragon Quest VI was released after Dragon Quest IX, a brand new game that sold over 2 million copies at launch and caught the attention of both old and new fans, helping to grow the series.
The top-20 chart for the week was as follows:
Lw | Tw | Title | Weekly Sales | Total Sales | Sys. | Publisher |
New | 01. | Dragon Quest VII: Warriors of Eden | 827,922 | New | 3DS | Square Enix |
01. | 02. | Animal Crossing: New Leaf | 81,559 | 2,513,424 | 3DS | Nintendo |
02. | 03. | Fantasy Life | 13,342 | 221,720 | 3DS | Level 5 |
04. | 04. | New Super Mario Bros. 2 | 11,685 | 1,910,708 | 3DS | Nintendo |
06. | 05. | Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate (Best Price!) | 10,523 | 218,097 | 3DS | Capcom |
09. | 06. | Taiko no Tatsujin: Super Splendid Edition | 8,859 | 386,149 | Wii | Namco Bandai |
08. | 07. | Demon Gaze | 8,170 | 43,910 | PSV | Kadokawa |
03. | 08. | DmC Devil May Cry | 7,476 | 164,690 | PS3 | Capcom |
15. | 09. | Taiko Drum Master: The Little Dragon and the Mysterious Orb | 7,459 | 416,033 | 3DS | Namco Bandai |
17. | 10. | Run for Money Tousouchuu | 7,383 | 420,815 | 3DS | Namco Bandai |
28. | 11. | Monster Monpiece | 7,312 | 36,754 | PSV | Compile Heart |
13. | 12. | Paper Mario: Sticker Star | 6,452 | 518,096 | 3DS | Nintendo |
11. | 13. | Inazuma Eleven Go 2: Chrono Stone – Neppuu/Raimei | 6,121 | 414,207 | 3DS | Level 5 |
19. | 14. | New Super Mario Bros. U | 5,857 | 460,786 | WiiU | Nintendo |
New | 15. | Heroes Vs. | 5,693 | New | PSP | Namco Bandai |
21. | 16. | Mario Kart 7 | 5,674 | 1,972,440 | 3DS | Nintendo |
14. | 17. | Hitman Absolution | 5,500 | 35,223 | PS3 | Square Enix |
20. | 18. | Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (Dubbed Version) | 4,983 | 124,112 | PS3 | Square Enix |
24. | 19. | Nintendo Land | 4,486 | 286,478 | WiiU | Nintendo |
25. | 20. | Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage 2 | 4,314 | 232,050 | PS3 | Tecmo Koei |
Sales data acquired from 4Gamer, Media Create and Geimin.net.