This Week In Sales: Persona Q Emerges From The Labyrinth

Period: The week of June 2nd – June 8th (2014)

Top-seller: Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth (3DS) – 186,856

Nintendo 3DS sales: 5,346 | Total sales: 9,506,533

Nintendo 3DS XL sales: 30,924 | Total sales: 6,134,206

PlayStation Vita sales: 11,450 | Total sales: 2,833,351

Vita TV sales: 1,193 | 115,468

Wii U sales: 13,766 | Total sales: 1,778,632

PlayStation 4 sales: 9,466 | 597,156

<< Last week’s software sales chart

<< How to read and understand sales

Last week, Atlus released Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth in Japan. The game is an RPG that combines the world and characters of Persona 3 and Persona 4 with the dungeon-crawling and battle mechanics of the Etrian Odyssey series.

In its first week on store shelves, Persona Q sold 186,856 copies. Since this is Atlus’ replacement for Etrian Oddysey in 2014, let’s see how it holds up against the first-week sales of the Etrian Oddysey games released up until now:

• (2007) Etrian Odyssey – 32,511
• (2008) Etrian Odyssey II – 68,913
• (2010) Etrian Odyssey III – 87,765
• (2012) Etrian Odyssey IV – 95,506
• (2013) Etrian Odyssey Untold – 88,278

Needless to say, at 186,856 copies, that’s a huge win for Persona Q and Atlus. But instead of comparing the game to a niche franchise like the Etrian Odyssey series, let’s see how it stacks up against the franchise it’s part of—Persona.

When it was originally released back in 2008, Persona 4 sold 192,812 copies in its first week. The game sold through 89.67% of its first shipment. In comparison, Persona Q—which is a very different kind of game that you would expect to cater to a very different kind of audience—has sold 186,856 with a sell-through of 80.64%, according to Japanese sales tracker Media Create. That’s very impressive.

Media Create adds that a number of the same people that bought Persona 4: Golden for the PS Vita also bought Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, despite the fact that this is the very first Persona game on the Nintendo 3DS. P4: Golden has sold 294,000 copies in Japan so far, so it should be interesting to see how many copies Persona Q ends up selling in the long run.

At this rate, it wouldn’t be surprising in the slightest to see Atlus experiment with more Persona games on the Nintendo 3DS, but if they do, just what forms those games will take remains to be seen.

The top-20 software sales chart for last week is as follows:

Sales data acquired from 4Gamer and Media Create.