Splatoon 2 and Nintendo Switch Lead Japanese Sales

The day finally came for Nintendo Switch’s biggest release of the summer. After building a huge fanbase with the original entry on Wii U, Splatoon 2 debuts on Nintendo Switch with 648.000 sales according to Media Create, which is enough to pass in just one week the total numbers of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the previous top sellers of the console. The number is also a big improvement on the first game’s debut of 156.610 sales, a sign of how much the fanbase has developed in this time.

Japan is definitely Splatoon’s biggest market, with the game still getting good sales in the West, although nothing compared to this. For example, the game failed to reach number 1 in the UK, beat by Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy in its fourth week.

Nintendo was also able to make a larger shipment of Nintendo Switch consoles in Japan this week, which resulted in sales of 98.999. While it’s not enough to cover the huge demand in Japan, or to make up for the sales that couldn’t be done in previous weeks, hopefully it’s a sign that the distribution of the console will be better from now on, as promised.

For the first time, it seems like the rise of sales of Nintendo Switch did not translate into proportional increases for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Breath of the Wild, with the first one only selling 12% more than last week, and the second one actually dropping 15%.

While not comparable to Splatoon 2, the other big game release of the week was Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaire’s Conspiracy, the new entry in the Layton series, which was released simultaneously on smartphones. That seems to have hurt the sales on 3DS, although 70.867 is still an important number.

Elsewhere in the charts, Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star for Nintendo Switch failed with only 10.247 sales, and PS4 reached 5 million sales only one week before getting its most important release of the year Dragon Quest XI. Square Enix’s RPG is expected to sell at least a million copies for both versions of PS4 and 3DS.

Software List

01. [NSW] Splatoon 2 – 648.085 / NEW
02. [3DS] Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaire’s Conspiracy – 70.867 / NEW
03. [3DS] Hey! Pikmin – 21.628 / 87.494 (-67%)
04. [3DS] Sumikko Gurashi: Koko, Dokonan Desu? – 20.883 / NEW
05. [PS4] Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age – 19.049 / 119.813 (-81%)
06. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 12.980 / 588.028 (+12%)
07. [NSW] Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star – 10.247 / NEW
08. [NSW] Arms – 7.984 / 177.987 (-8%)
09. [PS4] Gundam Versus – 6.665 / 143.844 (-58%)
10. [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 5.989 / 543.016 (-15%)
11. [3DS] Pokemon Sun / Moon – 5.276 / 3.295.102 (+7%)
12. [PS4] Under Night In-Birth Exe:Latest – 5.013 / NEW
13. [3DS] Ever Oasis – 4.511 / 18.835 (-69%)
14. [3DS] Monster Hunter Double Cross – 3.354 / 1.546.392 (-17%)
15. [PSV] Minecraft: PlayStation Vita Edition – 3.331 / 1.180.284 (+5%)
16. [NSW] Cars 3: Driven to Win – 3.220 / NEW
17. [3DS] Animal Crossing: New Leaf – Welcome amiibo – 3.201 / 205.098 (+0%)
18. [PSV] World Election – 3.017 / NEW
19. [PS4] Grand Theft Auto V [New Price Edition] – 2.792 / 366.844 (-14%)
20. [NSW] 1-2-Switch – 2.636 / 233.737

Hardware List

01. Nintendo Switch – 98.999
02. Nintendo 3DS – 34.145
03. PlayStation 4 – 30.878
04. PlayStation Vita – 4.545
05. Wii U – 176
06. PlayStation 3 – 142
07. Xbox One – 77