This Week In Sales: A Link Between Worlds

Period: The week of December 23rd – December 29th (2013)

Top-seller: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds – 224,143

Nintendo 3DS sales: 61,836 | Total sales: 9,236,034

Nintendo 3DS XL sales: 139,867 | Total sales: 5,425,886

PlayStation Vita sales: 81,111 | Total sales: 2,279,113

Vita TV sales: 6,031 | 76,244

Wii U sales: 73,178 | Total sales: 1,525,430

<< Last week’s software sales chart

On December 26th, 2013, Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds in Japan. In its first week on store shelves, the Nintendo 3DS game sold 224,143 copies. Here’s a look at how that stacks up against other recent portable Zeldas:

(2011) Ocarina of Time 3D – 164,110

(2009) Spirit Tracks – 291,496

(2007) Phantom Hourglass – 302,887

Not too shabby. A Link Between Worlds outsold Ocarina of Time 3D, but unfortunately, didn’t manage to reach out to the outlying audience that Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks commanded. This is one of those games that should be interesting to look back on six months from now, to see how it held up on a weekly basis.

Meanwhile, Square Enix released Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster. The PlayStation 3 version of the game sold 185,918 copies, while the Vita version sold 149,132 copies, including sales of the PS Vita bundle that included the game. Finally, Final Fantasy X HD (without X-2) sold an additional 25,443 copies on Vita.

Great sales for an HD Remaster, but I must admit to some disappointment, given that Final Fantasy X is considered to be one of the more popular Final Fantasy games in Japan. I was personally expecting to see a higher opening week from the game, given that Final Fantasy III’s remake on the Nintendo DS debuted with over 500,000 copies sold back in 2006, but naturally, the market has changed since then.

Additionally, a number of other popular titles continued to sell consistently throughout the holidays. Most impressive in my eyes are Namco Bandai’s Nintendo 3DS games, all of which are well on their way to crossing the 200,000 mark in the weeks to come. It looks like Namco have found their new home for titles developed on a conservative budget.

Finally, Puzzle & Dragons Z has crossed the 1 million mark in actual sales to customers, surpassing GungHo’s expectations (1 million by the end of the holidays) ahead of time.

The top-20 chart for the week was as follows:

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