Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, Super Mario 3D World Debut Below Expectations In Japan

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This was not the best week for the Final Fantasy or Mario franchises in Japan.  Both franchises are typically guaranteed sellers, but not in this case.  To be fair, both shifted a good number of units, but they were severely below first week sales of previous entries in both franchise.

Final Fantasy XIII made its debut in Japan in 2009 and sold 1.5 million copies in its first week.  Final Fantasy sold less than half of that with only 538,000 units in its first week.  Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII only sold about 277,000 units in its first week on PS3.  The Xbox 360 version didn’t even chart.

Super Mario 3D World was seen as the savior of the Wii U, but it doesn’t look that way.  The game shifted about 100,000 units giving the Wii U title the worse first week sales of any 3D Mario game.  Wii U barely saw a boost in hardware units sold with only about 5,000 more units sold compared to the previous week.

Hardware wise it is clear that Japan is in love with its handheld.  Both the 3DS and PS Vita continued to sell very well compared to home consoles.  We’ll have to wait till the PS4 launches in the country to see if handhelds are truly king.

Check out the Top 20 Games below (Total sales are in parentheses):

  1. [PS3] Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (Square Enix, 11/21/13) – 277,082 (New)
  2. [Wii U] Super Mario 3D World (Nintendo, 11/21/13) – 99,588 (New)
  3. [3DS] One Piece: Unlimited World R (Namco Bandai, 11/21/13) – 83,605 (New)
  4. [3DS] Pokemon X and Y (Nintendo, 10/12/13) – 72,932 (3,002,738)
  5. [3DS] Aikatsu! 2-ri no My Princess (Namco Bandai, 11/21/13) – 72,087 (New)
  6. [PSV] God Eater 2 (Namco Bandai, 11/14/13) – 39,052 (305,378)
  7. [PS3] Pro Evolution Soccer 2014 (Konami, 11/14/13) – 35,879 (187,678)
  8. [PS3] Call of Duty: Ghosts (Square Enix, 11/14/13) – 29,252 (219,883)
  9. [3DS] Monster Hunter 4 (Capcom, 09/14/13) – 21,120 (2,959,789)
  10. [PSP] God Eater 2 (Namco Bandai, 11/14/13) – 20,508 (132,531)
  11. [PS3] Monster Hunter Frontier G Beginner’s Package (Capcom/ 11/20/13) -19,334 (New)
  12. [Wii U] Taiko Drum Master: Wii U Version (Namco Bandai, 11/21/13) – 19,265 (New)
  13. [PSV] New Atelier Rorona: The Origin Story of the Alchemist of Arland (Gust, 11/24/13) – 17,536 (New)
  14. [PS3] New Atelier Rorona: The Origin Story of the Alchemist of Arland (Gust, 11/24/13) – 14,060 (New)
  15. [PS3] Grand Theft Auto V (Take-Two, 10/10/13) – 13,548 (593,370)
  16. [3DS] Daigasso! Band Brothers P (Nintendo, 11/14/13) – 12,635 (52,831)
  17. [PS3] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2013 (Konami, 10/24/13) – 9,485 (190,659)
  18. [PS3] Battlefield 4 (EA, 11/07/13) – 9,134 (150,124)
  19. [PSP] Pro Evolution Soccer 2014 (Konami, 11/14/13) – 7,624 (24,600)
  20. [3DS] Sentouchu Densetsu no Shinobi to Survival Battle (Namco Bandai, 10/17/13) – 7,046 (102,350)

And here are the hardware rankings (Last week’s sales are in parentheses):

  1. 3DS LL – 63,709 (47,852)
  2. PSV – 21,044 (46,350)
  3. Wii U – 21,002 (15,906)
  4. 3DS – 20,797 (22,250)
  5. PS3 – 12,436 (12,019)
  6. Vita TV – 7,868 (42,172)
  7. PSP – 3,546 (4,353)
  8. Wii – 457 (518)
  9. 360 – 342 (404)

Thanks, Gematsu!

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