This Week In Sales: The Golden Week Effect

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On account of Golden Week, there were no new releases in Japan the week of May 3rd – 9th. Here’s the usual top-ten chart, but be sure to look at the one below it as well:

 

Lw Tw Title Tw. Sales Tot. Sales Sys. Publisher
01. 01. Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 252,862 876,505 DS Square Enix
02. 02. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker 140,591 574,957 PSP Konami
04. 03. New Super Mario Bros. Wii 46,690 3,806,779 Wii Nintendo
07. 04. Tomodachi Collection 33,342 3,190,794 DS Nintendo
06. 05. Mario Kart Wii 32,340 2,771,000 Wii Nintendo
10. 06. Wii Fit Plus 23,314 1,890,761 Wii Nintendo
03. 07. Super Street Fighter IV 20,084 101,147 PS3 Capcom
12. 08. Pokémon Ranger: Tracks of Light 20,007 446,000 DS The Pokémon Company
16. 09. Wii Sports Resort 15,902 1,886,000 Wii Nintendo
09. 10. NieR Replicant 15,858 96,921 PS3 Square Enix

 

In its second week, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is holding up better than Metal Gear Solid 4 did. Where MGS4 reached 533,000 units its second week, Peace Walker is at 574,957.

 

Aside from that, the top-ten isn’t all that thrilling, is it? But the fact that there weren’t any new releases doesn’t mean nothing of interest happened. Take a look at this second chart:

 

Lw Tw Title Sys. Publisher
11. 11. Pro Baseball Spirits 2010 PSP Konami
21. 12. New Super Mario Bros. DS Nintendo
18. 13. Pro Baseball Spirits 2010 PS3 Konami
17. 14. Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (the Best) PSP Capcom
09. 15. The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks DS Nintendo
26. 16. Pokémon Heart Gold / Soul Silver DS The Pokémon Company
29. 20. Dragon Quest IX (Ultimate Hits) DS Square Enix
40. 21. Mario Kart DS DS Nintendo
35. 22. Inazuma Eleven 2 Fire / Blizzard DS Level-5
42. 28. Taiko Drum Master Wii 2 Wii Namco Bandai
39. 29. Super Smash Bros. Brawl Wii Nintendo

 

See all those huge jumps from “last week” to “this week”? It appears the lack of new releases provided a chance for older titles that resonated with the Japanese audience to creep their way up the chart as Golden Week kicked in. These are the games with relatively longer tails that keep selling consistently every week. In the absence of new products, a relatively large portion of the market tends to fall back on them.

 

All sales data provided by the Media Create group.

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Author
Ishaan Sahdev
Ishaan specializes in game design/sales analysis. He's the former managing editor of Siliconera and wrote the book "The Legend of Zelda - A Complete Development History". He also used to moonlight as a professional manga editor. These days, his day job has nothing to do with games, but the two inform each other nonetheless.