Japan Monthly Report for April-May 2020

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 are calling April - May was from March 30th to May 31^st (9 weeks)

This was a heavy period for remakes as all major releases were revivals of old games, yet even the remake of what once was the biggest RPG of all time could not beat the 2^nd month of Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

• Hardware: Both major systems had supply issues for the period, as Switch demand remains very high due to Animal Crossing and PlayStation 4 demand also increased to the FFVII Remake, as a result there were some high weeks for hardware on both platforms, nonetheless demand and stock of Switch is much larger causing it to remain the best selling system in Japan. It seems Nintendo is solving issues with the main Switch SKU as that one has been overtaking sales of the Switch late the past few weeks.
• Software: Golden week, the big new releases and Animal Crossing made up for a huge month in software sales. As we no longer get overall software sales, we cannot get overall software revenue estimates. From the little data we get over 18 billion in revenue were generated from retail software with revenue of both main systems being pretty much even, PS4 sales driven by new software, even all the new games are remakes, and Switch’s by Animal Crossing.

Software

The best-selling games of April 2020 were:

1. [SWI] Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 2.077.002 (Over 12 billion yen in revenue)
2. [PS4] Final Fantasy VII Remake – 919.287 (Over 8.7 billion yen in revenue)
3. [PS4] Resident Evil 3 – 258.676 (Over 2.1 billion yen in revenue)
4. [SWI] RingFit Adventure – 211.432 (Over 1.7 billion yen in revenue)
5. [PS4] Trials of Mana – 129.811 (Over 800 million yen in revenue)
6. [SWI] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 124.914 (Over 700 million yen in revenue)
7. [SWI] Trials of Mana – 96.809 (Over 620 million yen in revenue)
8. [SWI] Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition – 90.789 (Over 610 million yen in revenue)
9. [SWI] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 87.798 (Over 570 million yen in revenue)
10. [SWI] Super Mario Party – 81.015 (Over 460 million yen in revenue)

Total sales of New Horizons are close to 5 million units at retail, being the first game to break the 4m mark so since Pokémon X / Y in early 2014, digital sales should put the game over 6 million making it is Nintendo Switch’s bestselling game. During the game’s second month it broke several further sales records having the biggest 6^th to 8^th weeks ever, it has been the best selling game in Japan for 8 uninterrupted weeks and the top seller for 11 weeks overall. And that is outside the holiday season, we may never see a game perform like it did ever again, 5 million in around two months is unprecedented.

Talking about unprecedented, about 23 years ago another game had an unprecedented run, it was the first game to sell over 2m units on launch week in Japan, it started a golden era for its developer and cemented the JRPG genre outside of Japan. That game is Final Fantasy VII and its long-awaited remake hit PS4 on early April.

Given the state of the Final Fantasy IP as well as the state of the PS4 in Japan, a performance even close to the original was never in the cards, at most we expected for it to sell on par with FFXV and at least stall the decline of the series. Yet the game ended up performing above expectations, launch week sales were on par with those of FFXV, however, the announcement of the state of emergency in Japan, as well as the game’s positive reviews increased interest dramatically close to launch.

The game virtually sold out on launch week selling 700k out of the 730k units shipped to retailers, after a month on sale the game’s sales are on par with those of FFXV despite the later one having released prior to the holidays and with FFVIIR maintaining its high price. The stock problems the game had also made up for high digital sales, to the point that FFVIIR has outsold FFXV already. That, as well, as the game’s positive reception domestically averted further collapse of the IP in Japan. Even if it is unlikely we’ll see an FF game debuting at 2m sold, things now look bright for Final Fantasy XVI.

While FFVII was one of the first high profile PS1 games, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis was one of the last, the game is infamous for its notoriously high launch, being the last game in the series as well as the last “adult” game to launch at 1m units in Japan, but also for its notoriously weak legs as the game ended up selling less than 1.4m units total. It’s been a troubled few years for the Resident Evil series in Japan as all the main entries on PS4 have sold well below of what the franchise used to pull, with the combined sales of Resident Evil 7 and the Resident Evil 2 remake being below those of Resident Evil 5. As such expectations were low for RE3. The original was already the weakest seller of the PS1 trilogy, and it is not exactly highly regarded retrospectively. In nearly two months, the game sold about as much as what RE2 sold on it’ launch week and its tracking to be the worst selling out of the 3 main games on PS4.

The last, and lesser, of the 3 remakes was Trials of Mana, the 3^rd game of the Seiken Densetsu series first released on Super Famicom in 1995. This was a positive surprise as the game was very well received and has sold well for what it is, with over 200k units between PS4 and Switch, the game should become the bestselling entry in the series in a very long time and shows that it has potential when done right, as it has sold several times over what the remake of Secret of Mana did a few years ago. Sadly, we will not be able to see its full potential as the Switch version of the game had some severe stock issues.

The last noteworthy release was the remake/remaster of Xenoblade Chronicles, making it the third time it has been released after the new Nintendo 3DS port and the Wii original. It was a good idea to give the game a new opportunity given the huge success of Xenoblade 2 and JRPGs overall on Switch. Despite it being the third release DE had the biggest opening for the title, seeing a 15% increase over the Wii original and more than twice than the new 3DS port, it’s also the 2^nd biggest launch of the series, just slightly below the launch of Xenoblade 2. Good launch for the game but it is expected to have weaker legs than that game.

The rest of the big sellers were older games, most notable RingFit Adventure finally had some stock as during golden week the game sold more than what it did at launch or at any week during the holidays, sales of the game finally surpassed 1m units as well as there have been some 150k units sold through My Nintendo Store, not tracked by Famitsu, making it the first IP to sell over 1m since Splatoon did it in 2015.

The best-selling games of the year so far:

1. [SWI] Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 4.685.419 (Over 28.6 billion yen in revenue)
2. [PS4] Final Fantasy VII Remake – 919.287 (Over 8.7 billion yen in revenue)
3. [SWI] Pokémon Sword / Shield – 619.825 (Over 3.5 billion yen in revenue)
4. [SWI] RingFit Adventure – 460.920 (Over 3.7 billion yen in revenue)
5. [SWI] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 306.835 (Over 1.7 billion yen in revenue)
6. [PS4] Resident Evil 3 – 258.676 (Over 2.1 billion yen in revenue)
7. [SWI] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 258.020 (Over 1.7 billion yen in revenue)
8. [SWI] Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX – 255.177 (Over 1.6 billion yen in revenue)
9. [SWI] Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition – 253.921 (Over 900 billion yen in revenue)
10. [PS4] Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon – 243.769 (Over 2.1 billion yen in revenue)

The best-selling games of the past 12 months

1. [SWI] Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 4.685.419 (Over 28.6 billion yen in revenue)
2. [SWI] Pokémon Sword / Shield – 3.670.959 (Over 21.8 billion in revenue)
3. [SWI] RingFit Adventure – 956.559 (Over 7.9 billion in revenue)
4. [PS4] Final Fantasy VII Remake – 919.287 (Over 8.7 billion yen in revenue)
5. [SWI] Super Mario Maker 2 – 919.001 (Over 5.6 billion in revenue)
6. [SWI] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 647.891 (Over 3.6 billion in revenue)
7. [SWI] Luigi's Mansion 3 – 644.918 (Over 3.9 billion in revenue)
8. [SWI] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 607.824 (Over 4.1 billion in revenue)
9. [SWI] Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition – 600.610 (Over 2.1 billion in revenue)
10. [SWI] Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition – 518.818 (Over 4.3 billion in revenue)

Nintendo was the period’s top publisher, selling more than 3 million games in April and May and now more than 7 million for 2020, having already surpassed their total sales of 2019. Square Enix comes as the second biggest publisher by moving over 1.2m, Capcom, Bandai Namco, and Pokémon Co. follow, selling 300k, 180k and 110k, respectively.

Hardware

Nintendo Switch was once again Japan’s bestselling system, with the sales of both months amounting to over 650k units, if the stock of the system remains steady then it should surpass 14 million sales total by the end of June/early July. During the past few weeks stock of the original Nintendo Switch has been more plentiful and it has returned to consistently outsell the Lite version. That SKU has sold over 1m units for the year so far and should surpass year to date sales of the Lite version later in the year. As the combined sales of both SKUs are up year on year by over 1 million units, just Nintendo Switch makes it a positive year for hardware as it is making up the drops on 3DS and PS4.

PlayStation 4 sales were also interesting in this period, the system sold over 200k units between April and May, most of those in April and mostly off the back of the Final Fantasy VII Remake, seems like the demand for that game surpassed expectations for itself and the platform it was on, as the PS4 had stock problems for most of May with the base PS4 selling less than 1000 units during the later weeks, the worst it’s sold since before the system’s original price cut in October 2015 and the Pro model also saw severe shortages. Given the system’s upcoming release schedule for June and July we should see those issues sorted out, unlike Switch PS4 is not missing tens of thousands of units sold due to shortages, so the situation is more manageable for Sony.