This Week In Sales: Pikmin 3 And Luigi Lift Wii U Sales

Period: The week of July 8th – July 14th (2013)

Top-seller: Pikmin 3 – 92,720

Nintendo 3DS sales: 13,841 | Total sales: 8,415,402

Nintendo 3DS XL sales: 29,594 | Total sales: 3,387,384

PlayStation Vita sales: 15,662 | Total sales: 1,707,529

Wii U sales: 22,199 | Total sales: 990,738

<< Last week’s software sales chart

Last week, Nintendo released the first of what they say will be a slate of Wii U games that will help turn the system’s fortunes around—Pikmin 3. The game sold 92,720 copies in its first week, and it should be interesting to see how weekly sales continue. Below is a TV commercial for the game, to give you an idea of how Nintendo are promoting it:

Also released last week was the retail version of New Super Luigi U, the expansion to New Super Mario Bros. U, featuring remixed stages. The downloadable version of the game was made available in June, but the retail version is a standalone game that doesn’t require New Super Mario Bros. U to be played. This sold 24,881 copies.

Together, both titles gave the Wii U a sales boost for the week, taking sales up to over 20,000 units. As always, we expect the surge in sales to be short-lived until there’s a steady stream of software available for the system.

Finally, Level 5’s Youkai Watch—which is meant to be the company’s next major multimedia franchise—sold 53,654 copies in its first week. Those aren’t stellar sales, but there’s always chance that the game could continue to sell over time and find a wider audience for itself. The problem is, the game’s multimedia tie-ins will take a while to arrive.

The top-20 chart for the week was as follows:

Sales data acquired from 4Gamer, Media Create and Geimin.net.