lunes, 10 de diciembre de 2018

Japan Monthly Report for November 2018


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 GSD 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 November was from October 29th to November 2nd (5 weeks).

The holidays start on a disappointing month on what was an underwhelming November with disappointing hardware and software sales. Switch sells less than it did last November, despite a new Pokémon title, which in question also underperforms for the series’ standards, while high profile releases such as Fallout 76 and Battlefield V also had poor starts and failed to spark underwhelming PS4 sales.

This November is the 6th month in a row where revenue is down compared to last year, overall hardware and retail software sales for 2018 are on track of being among the worse seen in Japan in over 20 years.
  • Hardware: Around 20 billion yen of revenue came form hardware, more than twice than in October but seeing a 20% drop compared to last November, the drop is mainly due to the loss of 3DS and PS4 sales, who saw a 60% and 30% drop compared to last year, respectively. Switch sales also see a drop but a relatively mild at of just 20k units, they sales also represented over 75% of all hardware sold in November, with the sales of the Pokémon and Smash Bros. bundles revenue is likely flat despite lower sales.
  • Software: Around 13 billion in revenue from retail games, a 30% increase over October and a notable 45% decrease over last November, with high price games such as Call of Duty and Red Dead Redemption II making most of their sales on October and Battlefield V and Fallout 76 underperforming this is the result, even if the new Pokémon titles see a price increase over previous entries it selling well below them didn’t help.

Software

The best selling games of November 2018 were:
  1. [SWI] Pokémon: Let's Go Pikachu! / Let's Go Eevee! – 896.198 (Over 5.5 billion in revenue)
  2. [SWI] Super Mario Party – 125.109 (Over 600 million in revenue)
  3. [PS4] Battlefield V – 117.159 (Over 950 million in revenue)
  4. [PS4] Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 – 81.591 (Over 550 million in revenue)
  5. [PS4] Fallout 76 – 78.789 (Over 630 million in revenue)
  6. [3DS] Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth – 74.425 (Over 560 million in revenue)
  7. [PS4] Red Dead Redemption II – 60.594 (Over 460 million in revenue)
  8. [SWI] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 56.701 (Over 300 million in revenue)
  9. [3DS] Luigi's Mansion – 51.860 (Over 250 million in revenue)
  10. [SWI] Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition – 48.396 (Over 160 million in revenue)

This year’s Pokémon release was, as expected, the best selling game of November, Let’s Go Pikachu! / Let’s Go Eevee! had the second biggest launch of the year, behind Monster Hunter: World and the second biggest launch on Nintendo Switch yet, behind Splatoon 2, though it’s a disappointing performance historically for a Pokémon title, being the first title in the series to sell less than 1m at launch week in 10 years, the worst opening week since 2004’s Pokémon Emerald, and the 3rd lowest launch for the series, after the original titles and the aforementioned Emerald.

It is true that this is also the second lowest install base a Pokémon title has released on since Pokémon Crystal which launched at 707k units with 4.7m Game Boy Colors sold through against the 664k units of Let’s Go Pikachu! / Let’s Go Eevee! With 5.6m Switch units sold, however is also worth considering that Splatoon 2 had a higher first week on an even lower install base. And to do other comparisons, Super Mario Odyssey had a bigger launch than either Super Mario Galaxy game on Wii despite launching on a lower install base, Kirby Star Allies also had one of the best launches for the series on one of its lowest install bases, and soon Super Smash Bros. Ultimate will outdo launch sales of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS despite launching on a system with 1/3 of the install base, so that can’t be the only issue.

For what it’s worth, this does not come as a surprise as Pokémon has been in decline in Japan starting in the 3DS generation with X / Y and Sun / Moon each becoming the worst game in the new main RPG series, Pokémon Go also didn’t became the big hit in Japan it was internationally (it still is a very popular game) and preorders were showing the game wasn’t going to pull what previous titles did. In the end Let’s Go Pikachu! / Let’s Go Eevee! Should still sell very well but will also likely end up as the worst selling of the RPGs, including third versions, sequels and remakes.

Other new releases are also disappointing with Battlefield V, Fallout 76, Luigi’s Mansion and Persona Q2 doing below expectations.

On PS4 Battlefield V sees the worst launch for a mainline Battlefield game in Japan since 2011’s Battlefield 3, even though the drop isn’t too bad from Battlefield 1, with only an about 15%. The issue is the sell through, they shipped 220k units to store shelves but have barely sold through half of that. The drop in Battlefield sales was predictable given the huge success of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 as FPS audience in Japan isn’t very large and they tend to go with one game, in 2016 Battlefield 1 ate into Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare’s sales, the opposite happened this time, but that terrible sell through could spell trouble for the game as it could hit bomba bins this holiday.

Talking about bomba bins, we also have Fallout 76, with Fallout 4 being Bethesda’s best selling title in Japan at nearly 300k units and both Fallout 3 (190k) and Fallout: New Vegas (120k) also selling well for a western title for their time, expectations were relatively high, even if this was a different spin off, but the negative reception the game has had everywhere as well as all the crazy news stories already killed the game, at least the sell through isn’t as bad as Battlefield V, with just 90k shipped, but the game will still need discounts to sell through them.

Nintendo 3DS is at the end of its life and Persona Q2 will likely be the last noteworthy third party game on the platform, Atlus’ title see a 60% drop in comparison to the 2014 original, it is a decent launch for a 3DS title at this point though, having the biggest launch for a 3DS title in 2018, the problem once again comes with the sell through, after launch week Atlus has over 50k unsold copies. Most fans get these type of crossover games at launch, so many unsold copies are not good, best case scenario is to hope that the game’s positive reception gets lapsed fans to dust off their 3DS.

On a more slightly disappointing note we have Luigi’s Mansion, well below the other games in the series, but not surprising, the game would have done much better released 2-3 years ago, as most 3DS releases for 2018 would’ve.

Now about the older games, Super Mario Party is at #2 just as it was last month, on the final week of this tracking a new SKU of the game that comes with a pair of joy-cons released and should be the lead SKU for the sales of the game going forward, the game has sold around 400k units in Japan already and by the end of the year sales will be higher than Mario Party: Island Tour (520k) and may end up close to Mario Party 9 (710k) it’s a good recovery for the series.

Next we also see last month’s best selling title, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, it was a very good month for the game, doing considerably better than what Call of Duty: WWII did in its second month, by now the game has sold over 560k units in Japan being the best selling game in the series on PS4, the series’ second best selling game on a single platform, behind 2012’s Black Ops II on PS3 (575k) and the third overall best selling game in the series’ behind the aforementioned title on PS3 / 360 / WIU (633k) and 2009’s Modern Warfare 2 on PS3 / 360 (592k) it is very likely Black Ops 4 will become the series’ best selling title in any way in Japan by the end of the year.

On a slightly more disappointing note there’s Red Dead Redemption 2, which is below Call of Duty on its second month despite being released at the very end of October, the game has sold 250k units by now, outselling the original, and with the online mode just released its unlikely it’ll stop selling, but sales are still underwhelming, Red Dead 2 won’t be a GTA style hit in Japan (in over a month its yet to match first week sales of GTAV) but it’s doing very well.

The rest of the top 10 is compromised of old Nintendo Switch titles, Minecraft and Mario Kart keep doing well and should have a strong holiday, the big surprise there is the lack of Splatoon 2, in what is the first month since launch were it isn’t among the best sellers in Japan, but after selling 3m units any game will start to lose steam.

Best selling games of 2018 so far:
  1. [PS4] Monster Hunter: World – 1.959.188 (Over 17.5 billion in revenue)
  2. [SWI] Splatoon 2 – 1.005.413 (Over 5.6 billion in revenue)
  3. [SWI] Pokémon: Let's Go Pikachu! / Let's Go Eevee! – 896.198 (Over 5.6 billion in revenue)
  4. [SWI] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 774.819 (Over 4.2 billion in revenue)
  5. [SWI] Kirby Star Allies – 626.152 (Over 3.6 billion in revenue)
  6. [SWI] Super Mario Odyssey – 521.708 (Around 3 billion in revenue)
  7. [PS4] Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 – 457.732 (Over 3.5 billion in revenue)
  8. [SWI] The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 445.255 (Around 2.7 billion in revenue)
  9. [3DS] Pokemon Ultra Sun / Ultra Moon – 401.281 (Over 1.7 billion in revenue)
  10. [SWI] Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition – 391.456 (Over 1.3 billion in revenue)

Best selling games of the past 12 months
  1. [PS4] Monster Hunter: World – 1.959.188 (Over 17.5 billion in revenue)
  2. [SWI] Splatoon 2 – 1.327.206 (Over 7.3 billion in revenue)
  3. [SWI] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 1.070.729 (Over 5.8 billion in revenue)
  4. [SWI] Super Mario Odyssey – 977.612 (Over 5.6 billion in revenue)
  5. [SWI] Pokémon: Let's Go Pikachu! / Let's Go Eevee! – 896.198 (Over 5.6 billion in revenue)
  6. [3DS] Pokemon Ultra Sun / Ultra Moon – 826.787 (Over 3.6 billion in revenue)
  7. [SWI] Kirby Star Allies – 626.152 (Over 3.6 billion in revenue)
  8. [SWI] The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 539.670 (Around 3.3 billion in revenue)
  9. [3DS] Yo-kai Watch Busters 2: Hihou Legend Banbarayaa - Sword / Magnum – 501.670 (Around 2.5 billion in revenue)
  10. [PS4] Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 – 457.732 (Over 3.5 billion in revenue)

Around 2.5 million games were sold in November, a big decrease of the 4 million sold in last November, the drop comes from the collapse in 3DS sales as it did less than 15% of last November sales. as well as PS4 dropping around 20%, software of PSV and the older consoles is negligible by now selling less than 50k units. Switch was the only positive result increasing sales around 30% and selling more than half of the total games sold for the month, this November was also the second best month for Switch software since last December.


The Pokémon Company was the biggest publisher this month, being the first time since last November, TPC moved about 30% of the total software for the month and are well above other publishers at over 900k units sold, Nintendo is after them at 350k units, with them being by far the biggest publisher of the year at about 6 million games sold, 1 out of every 4 games sold in 2018 in Japan has been a Nintendo game, they’re likely selling some 9 million games in the country for the whole year, which will likely end up being around 30% of retail software sales for the year. Electronic Arts, Sony and Bethesda go after them as the biggest publishers of the month.

Hardware

Nintendo Switch is now Japan’s best selling system for 9 months in a row, this is the biggest month its seen in comparison to the rest at 75% of the total hardware sales for the month and selling 5 times as much as its nearest competitor, even then the system is slightly below last year’s November and is down year on year by over 100k units, its very unlikely it’ll end the year in negative terms, but it should be performing much better after what we saw last year. Either way Switch outsold the PlayStation Vita this month and will get to 7 million by the end of the year, chances are it’ll outsell the PlayStation 4 before its 3rd year in the market.

Switch sells 495k units, PS4 does 98k, 3DS 39 and everything else combined is less than 15k.


I typically post this revenue charts without comment, but it merits one now. This is the 6 months in a row where revenue is down compared to the same month last year, with July and now November seeing huge drops, the year was off to a very positive start thanks to huge sales of Monster Hunter: World but now we’re on track on one of the worse years for videogames in Japan in decades. Revenue is down by around 50 billion yen compared to last year, 110 billion yen would be needed in December for revenue to be flat, which in turns means that this December would need to do near double of what last December did.


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