Japan Monthly Report for September 2017

In the US and Europe there are market research firms that release a monthly report about how the industry is doing, hardware and software sales, these are the NPD Group and the Gfk. As they are the only companies to do that business in those areas their numbers are, for the most part, not revealed to the public, that of course isn't an issue in Japan where we have 3 trackers that release data on a weekly basis.

Due to that all the information on this blog post is freely available on the website (as well as other corners of the internet) for anyone to use so if you want to check the data yourself go to Game Data Library, where all the data is listed.

That's that for the introduction, this post will have similar information that the Gfk and NPD Group makes public monthly: bestselling games, best-selling hardware, software and hardware moved as well as any more relevant information, note that for sales data we'll use the one that's officially released while for revenue it'll be estimations.

For all intents and purposes, the period we're calling September was from September 4th to October 1st (4 weeks)

This was a slow September, something we haven’t seen in a while, not just because it was 4 weeks rather than the usual 5, but because we saw no major releases, odd seeing how September is the end of the quarter, not a bad month though and even then, we have the holiday quarter to look forward to.

The industry generated some 20 billion yen during the month, meaning Q3 had a straight drop month to month, at least it was better than most of Q2. Hardware once again did more than software moving 12 billion-yen, strong sales of both the PS4 and Nintendo Switch are to thank as both combined amount to 10 billion. Software sales and revenue are also pretty good considering the month depended mostly on sales of older titles rather than new releases.

• Hardware: 12 billion of yen were generated from it as previously mentioned, once again Nintendo Switch was the best-selling system with some 210k units sold doing over 6 billion in revenue, behind it on both was the PS4 selling some 120k making over 4 billion in revenue, the high price of both items is what makes the most revenue, 3DS is behind the PS4 by just 40k yet it made only 1.4 billion in revenue, the rest sold less than 20k making just over 300 million in revenue, Wii U and PS3 have seen their worst month yet, though both consoles are just selling whatever little stock there is anyway.
• Software: 8 billion came from software, the lowest since June, as mentioned before most revenue and sales come from older titles as the new releases didn’t do so well, in fact it’s the first time we’ve seen a two-month-old game be the best-selling title of the month, very good for Splatoon 2 but it was due to not seeing major releases, at least nothing of the size we’ve seen the past few Septembers. PS4 moved the most software and revenue this time, the first time since February, makes sense being the only system with notable games, also Nintendo Switch outsold 3DS software for the first time and by a rather large margin at that.

Software

The best-selling games of September 2017 were:

1. [SWI] Splatoon 2 – 129.735 (Over 600 million in revenue)
2. [PS4] The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III – 104.401 (Nearly 900 million in revenue)
3. [PS4] Winning Eleven 2018 – 98.680 (Over 740 million in revenue)
4. [PS4] Destiny 2 – 80.023 (Over 650 million in revenue)
5. [SWI] Pokken Tournament DX – 77.220 (Around 500 million in revenue)
6. [PS4] FIFA 18 – 56.924 (Over 350 million in revenue)
7. [3DS] Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age – 50.010 (Around 300 million in revenue)
8. [SWI] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 48.224 (Over 250 million in revenue)
9. [PS4] Everybody's Golf – 47.306 (Over 270 million in revenue)
10. [SWI] Fire Emblem Warriors – 40.606 (Over 340 million in revenue)

Let’s go with the bad before the good, first of we see a lot of underperformers, starting with the biggest game of the year, Dragon Quest XI, it was the best-selling game of August and it saw a 90% drop into September, with the PS4 version not even on Top 10 selling less than 30k units. August already made it clear that it wasn’t going to perform as a typical Dragon Quest title (which it isn’t being multiplatform) but still it’s not doing all that great, not individually at least, combined sales are over 3.2 million by now, which while good, its worse than any mainline title for the past 20 years.

Winning Eleven also sees a drop, compared to last September that is, though not a very large one, last September 2016’s game sold some 120k to this year’s 115k, still far away from the former glory of the series, but at least it hasn’t completely collapsed, a Nintendo Switch version is likely bound for next year, so we could see it rise a bit. Destiny 2 on the other hand sees a huge drop from the original, in fact it hasn’t even reach week 1 sales of the original title, same applies to Pokken on Switch, though that one is doing a little better and finally Everybody’s Golf, it also is yet to reach first week sales of the previous outing.

Fire Emblem Warriors also did rather poorly, seeing the worst first week for a game carrying the Fire Emblem title since Thracia 776 in 1999, not a good result for a musou title either, but this was expected to see interest for the game was rather low, it’s been well received at least, but don’t expect a good long-time performance; earlier this year we saw Echoes underperforming too, so not an isolated incident for Fire Emblem, maybe too many games too fast.

On a little more positive side we have Sen no Kiseki 3, now this is more for the future of the series, rather than the game itself, as Kiseki 3 saw a lower opening than the previous two titles and is a huge drop for The Legend of Heroes series in general. All of it was expected however, given that it was a PS4 exclusive this time, so considering that sales are pretty good, as it’s a better first week seen on the PS3 or PSV versions of previous titles, a Kiseki 4 is coming so to see that the fanbase is at least loyal is a good thing.

On the positive results we see FIFA 18, with the added Switch version it has the highest first week for a FIFA game in over 17 years, highest of the series also on PS4, the uptick should continue next year, as the Switch grows, and the World Cup happens.

Finally, Splatoon 2, third best-selling game on July and August and now best-selling game of the month, great performance which should keep surprising as Switch stock hopefully increases, and we go into the holidays.

Talking about the game outside Top 10 for a bit we see Metroid just below Fire Emblem, the difference is less than 300 units, overall pretty good for Samus Returns given the historical performance of the series in Japan, but even then, it isn’t that noteworthy, also last month’s big Switch game, Monster Hunter XX at 37k, not bad, but not very good either, that game should at least sell some 200k in the end, maybe outsell the Wii U version.

Overall weak month in terms of releases, nothing close to the level of Persona, Metal Gear or Monster Hunter.

On totals the PS4 moved around 720k games in September, being the first time, it’s moved the most software since February, then it’s the Switch with 434k, not a big month, but the first time Switch moves more software than the 3DS, this due to the large 3DS drop more than anything. 3DS moved 350k units for the month, the worst month it has seen in a very long time. Vita moves 124k, PS3 32k, Wii U 17k and Xbox One 2k.

Nintendo was the top publisher again with 261k games sold, some 1.3 billion in revenue, then comes Sony, seeing the second-best month of the year for them, outdoing September, Sony moved some 163k and 1.2 billion in revenue, the high price of Destiny and Uncharted make up the difference. Both publishers will see a big October with Gran Turismo and Mario Odyssey releasing. After then we see Konami at 115k, and Square Enix tied with Nihon Falcom at 105k.

Hardware

Switch is on top once again as previously mentioned, moving some 210k, PS4 goes after it with some 119k, 29k being Pro units, 3DS sells 82k with the new 3DS/2DS XL being close at 39k and 35k respectively, it’s interesting to see the 3DS sell more, given the higher price point, 2DS sells 7k, 3DS is still up YoY, but probably won’t for much longer. Vita sells 15, everything else combined sells less than 1000 units.

We’re up compared to last September, but that’s due to Switch as both 3DS and PS4 saw large drops, makes sense given last September’s releases: Persona 5, the smaller cheaper PS4 and the wide release of the 2DS.