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Japan chart: Vita sales plummet in lieu of Pokemon sweeping the nation

Steel Battalion tanks.

Jeffrey Matulef avatar
News by Jeffrey Matulef Contributor
Updated on
34 comments

After last week's massive bump in Japanese Vita sales, Sony's system has dropped back down to the level it was at two weeks ago - around 13K.

Nintendo is still going strong with Japanese 3DS sales quadrupling those of runner-up, PlayStation 3. While some of this can be attributed to Pokémon Black & White coming out this week, the sales increase on the handheld was pretty mild - presumably because potential buyers already own the system.

Proportionally, Pokémon had a much larger impact on the aging DSi that sold more than double what it did last week. Granted an extra 520 units is little more than a drop in the bucket for the whole country.

Here's the full hardware chart, as reported by Andriasang:

  1. 3DS: 68,056 (Last week: 61,793)
  2. PlayStation 3: 15,680 (14,673)
  3. Vita: 13,589 (34,459)
  4. PSP: 8954 (9740)
  5. Wii: 6127 (5963)
  6. Xbox 360: 1073 (1084)
  7. PlayStation 2: 1065 (1237)
  8. DSi: 900 (380)
  9. DSi XL: 704 (689)

As reported earlier this week, Pokémon Black & White 2 is selling like hotcakes with over one and a half million copies moved in its first week. That's still not as well as its predecessor which managed a whopping 2,637,285 sales in a scant two days upon its release in 2010.

Meanwhile, From Software's Kinect curio Steel Battalion launched with a thud, coming in at 14th place with under 5000 units sold. Of course, Xbox 360 isn't very popular in Japan and a game that requires a niche peripheral for it was never a promising prospect, even with Capcom's strong marketing push.

Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland 3D is holding steady at second place with a mild decline from last week's 66,434, while Persona 4: The Golden sold less than a fifth of what it did in our last report, yet still maintains a spot in the top three.

  1. Pokémon Black & White 2 (Pokemon Co., DS): 1,561,738 - NEW
  2. Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland 3D (Square Enix, 3DS): 58,228 (Life to date: 721,174)
  3. Persona 4: The Golden (Atlus, Vita): 29,293 (166,369)
  4. Kenka Bancho Bros. Tokyo Battle Royal (Spike Chunsoft, PSP): 21,797 - NEW
  5. Tokyo Jungle (Sony, PS3): 18,715 (165,013)
  6. K-On After School Live!! HD Version (Sega, PS3): 13,581 - NEW
  7. Mario Party 9 (Nintendo, Wii): 13,339 (447,126)
  8. Mario Tennis Open (Nintendo, 3DS): 13,036 (198,047)
  9. Dragon's Dogma (Capcom, PS3): 9162 (446,410)
  10. Lollipop Chainsaw (Kadokawa, PS3): 7898 (61,246)
  11. Super Mario 3D Land (Nintendo, 3DS): 7609 (1,631,358)
  12. Mario Kart 7 (Nintendo, 3DS): 5091 (1,746,836)
  13. Akiba's Trip Plus (Acquire, PS3): 5034 (34,539)
  14. Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor (Capcom, Xbox 360): 4889 - NEW
  15. Arcana Famiglia: Vascello Phantasma no Majutsushi (Comfort, PSP): 4854 - NEW
  16. Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo, Wii): 4287 (965,713)
  17. Monster Hunter 3G (Capcom, 3DS): 4269 (1,481,643)
  18. Fire Emblem: Awakening (Nintendo, 3DS): 3972 (417,760)
  19. Gundam Seed Battle Destiny (Namco Bandai, Vita): 3668 (52,790)
  20. Mario & Sonic at the London Olympics (Nintendo, 3DS): 2965 (186,789)

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