We can chalk up another week in favor of Nitnendo's Wii U and the sales-storm that is Mario Kart 8. The dynamic duo have taken Japan by force as the PS4 continues to lose market and mind-share in the land of the rising sun.
DualShockers did us a huge favor by collecting data from both Famitsu and Media Create, making my job 200% easier because now I don't have to head to Google Translate and try to make good on the data from the Japanese centric gaming sites.
Anyway, the trend has continued with Mario Kart 8 leading the sales pack. At the very top of the chart is Mario Kart 8, followed by two Nintendo 3DS titles, Yo-kai Watch and Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth. Out of the top 10 games for the previous sales week ending on June 15th, Nintendo controlled three of the top five spots on the chart. That's very impressive.
As far as numbers go, Mario Kart 8 continues to add rocket-busting flavor to an already impressive first-month sales resume, moving 42,261 SKUs (according to Media Create). This brings the total to 441,205.
Famitsu has slightly different numbers for Mario Kart 8's sales, relegating the weekly SKU count to 41,195 and the total sales number of 466,974. People can complain about VGChartz all they want, but even from reputable sources there's still a moderate amount of numerical disparity between the figures.
Nevertheless, the moving and shaking by Nintendo's prime-time kart-racer has continued to spark a surge in hardware sales over in Japan.
According to Media Create the Wii U managed third place on the charts behind the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita (which also combined the numbers for the Vita TV), hitting 12,249. Famitsu put the hardware sales at 10,366. Not too bad (well, according to Media Create's numbers).
If Nintendo can keep up the momentum of moving just over 12k or more units a week in Japan that will effectively put them at close to 50k SKUs moved by the end of the month. For Japan, that's pretty good numbers.
On the opposite side of the tracks, the PS4 is not doing quite so well at all. In fact, on both Famitsu and Media Create's charts we see that the PS4's software barely breaks into the top 10. For Media Create Thief and FIFA '14 take the top 8th and 10th spot respectively. On Famitsu's chart the PS4 only manages to see one title on the top 10, and that's Thief taking the 7th spot on the list.
On the hardware side, the PS4 managed the exact same spot on both charts, coming in fourth place behind the Wii U, with Media Create noting that the PS4 moved 8,395 units and Famitsu noting that the PS4 only moved 7,352 units.
Even though the PS4 has been moving consistent numbers in Japan after the initial launch drop-off, it hasn't been able to keep pace with the Wii U. It was mentioned previously that it looks like the Wii U might take Japan this generation, and if the sales trends continue in the way that they have – especially leading up to the launch of Super Smash Bros. – then it's likely that Nintendo will easily dominate their home region with the Wii U.
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