Preview

Summary & A Look Ahead:

It was bundles week in Japan. Microsoft launched Kinect, and its bundles, Sony had another round of Torne bundles for PS3, Nintendo had Pokemon DSi bundles, and Sony introduced new PSP colors. Nintendo’s Red Wii, with Super Mario Bros. installed on it also was on the market for its first full week. As far as game release go, the 11/21 week was similar to the previous week – with one major hit launching. Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops sold about 180,000 units in Japan this week across PS3 and X360, making it one of the most successful launches ever of a Western game in Japan. Outside of Call of Duty, only a few games topped 30,000 units for the week. Konami’s Winning Eleven finally looks like it is seeing the end on PS2, as week one sales dropped to under 20,000 units week one. Interestingly, the PSP version also dropped off from last year – which suggests that the soccer audience for Konami is now overwhelmingly on PS3 in Japan.

Kinect launched for the X360 on November 20. With only two days of availability, and the X360 sporting a tiny 1.4m base at the ripe old age of five years old, not a single Kinect game appeared in the preliminary top twenty.  Sony’s Move, launched to a base four times the size of the X360 in Japan about a month ago, saw top titles debut to around 20,000 units week one. Given the relative sizes of the bases, and the fact that the preliminary top twenty cut off at 6,000 units this week, top Kinect games likely sold no more than 6,000 units this week. However, top games for a system generally attach to 1/3 of hardware units (sometimes up to 1/2 in early weeks), and thus Kinect concievably sold as many as 15,000 to 20,000 units week one. Something like that half of those units likely went to existing X360 owners, with the other half going to new users. Essentially, it looks like Kinect has penetrated 1% of the X360 audience in Japan week one.

Not much has changed on the preorder front. Mario Sports Mix is now amongst the top twenty most preordered games, with several days yet until launch. An opening of 50,000 or more is possible next week, although since the game has appeared so recently in the top twenty, it is difficult to know how quickly it is rising from the current level of 20,000 preorders. At the least, 30,000 is all but assured. Sony’s Gran Turismo 5 now has 260,000 preorders with a couple days until launch. Preorders will get to 275,000 – 300,000, with week one now looking like 500,000 – 550,000 units (400,000 – 450,000 standalone games, and 50,000-100,000 bundles). Capcom’s Monster Hunter Portable 3 looks like a monster-sized hit – with 1.62m preorders 10 days before launch. Pokemon Black / White preorders reached 1.72 preorders the day before it launched – and then set an all time week one record in Japan. Monster Hunter figures are trending similarly – towards a launch of at least 2m to 2.5m units – unless Capcom is unaware of the demand and ships far too few games for launch week.

Understanding the Japanese Preview:

Rather than saying x game for y platform sold between 20,000 and 28,000 units as in the past, the preliminary data will be broken down into charts by platform. Within these charts, there will two additional categories besides the rounded sales figure under ‘sales’. On the left will be ‘low end’ depicting the lowest amount the title likely sold for the week, while to the right will be ‘high end’ depicting the highest amount the title likely sold for the week. As always, this data is preliminary, and therefore, not final, but it is based on a sample. The varying platform market share the sample represents is why consistent sellers like Wii Fit Plus do not always appear in the preliminary data. Sales for this report are for the week ending November 21, 2010.

Software by Platform:

Figures are listed by the age of the platform, for the top twenty sku information that we recieve early.

Wii Software – Quiet week for Wii software. Nonetheless, Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Wii Sports Resort are likely over 10,000 units, given how much higher Wii hardware is than it has been in recent weeks. Wii Fit Plus and New Super Mario Bros. Wii should also be around 5,000 units for the week.  So far, Kirby has lived up to its reputation as a leggy series, with the game doubling week one sales in about one month. With the calendar almost in December now, Wii only has to retain steady sales for the November 28 week to see big rises in December and early January, and Mario Sports Mix should prevent any kind of last minute momentum collapse in the wake of the Red Wii. For this week, expect Wii hardware sales to fall into the 30,000 to 40,000 unit range.

PS3 Software – Call of Duty opened better than its predecessor, as was the case in the West. Between COD and everything else there was a huge drop off in software sales though. Winning Eleven is still doing well, but aside from the recently rejuvenated Resident Evil 5, it wasn’t a particularly good week for older / non COD PS3 software. This week the top Move games should top 40,000 units in Japan, something like 7/10 of 1% of the PS3 base in Japan. The figures are slowly becoming significant, but the market for motion gaming on PS3 in Japan still doesn’t really exist yet, in terms of making money. Last year, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 launched during the week before Final Fantasy XIII, when most hardware tends to increase by 30% or so. Teasing that out, the game pushed about 10,000 PS3s. Thus with COD and a Torne Bundle (which had also lifted PS3 previously) this week, there is little doubt that PS3 hardware sales increased a bit. Still, sequels and similar bundles push less hardware than the originals. Expect PS3 hardware sales to rise into the 25,000 to 35,000 unit range for the week.

X360 Software – Call of Duty opened worse than its predecessor on X360. However, Kinect launched this week, and likely sold 15,000 to 20,000 units between hardware bundles and the standalone sensors. Even so, no Kinect games charted in the preliminary top twenty. Expect X360 hardware sales to rise into the 6,000 to 12,000 unit range – depending on how many Kinects were sold.

PS2 Software – Winning Eleven charted. With sales down to 16,000 though, it is hard to imagine Konami could make money on a sequel to Winning Eleven for PS2 next year even with the engine standardized. Expect PS2 hardware sales to remain in the 1,000 to 2,000 unit range for the week.

PSP Software – Tactics Ogre lead PSP software again, but fell quite a bit from its opening week. Winning Eleven opened down from the previous game on PSP, but still has strong sales. Criminal Girls and a Pachislot game also charted. Only one version of God Eater appeared, so in the final data, sales should be closer to 16,000. Sony launched new PSP colors this week, so PSP hardware will increase, despite the fall off in software sales from last week. Expect PSP hardware sales to rise into the 45,000 to 60,000 unit range for the week.

DS Software – Nintendo launched Pokemon DSi bundles this week, which appears to have cannibalized Pokemon White but not Pokemon Black in our sample – total Pokemon sales should be over 30,000 units for the week. The other DS games to chart were sequels to popular older DS games – Lilo & Stitch, Magician’s Quest, and Fossil Fighters. In addition to the games that charted for the week, Radiant Historia is likely over 5,000 units as well. Expect DS hardware sales to rise into the 40,000 to 55,000 unit range for the week, as the DSi bundle was only available for two days in the week.

Contact Vgchartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com

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